


Futures Past

by giftheck



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-20 03:52:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14887107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giftheck/pseuds/giftheck
Summary: Did you ever hear the story of the fox who changed the future of Zootopia? What if he could change it because he came from it? Nick Wilde has been hiding this secret from Judy for a while – and it eventually comes out as Nick's own past catches up with him.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, and welcome to a brand-new story! This is a story that I’ve wanted to tell for some time, since Grief’s Reunion finished, but until recently I couldn’t peg down exactly how the world I’m going to present was going to work.
> 
> Special thanks go to the following for letting me run my ideas by them and for pointing out where I could strengthen this as much as possible: AnsemD, Toonsgirl27, skeali, VeryEagerPerson.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Zootopia belongs to Disney.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, and welcome to a brand-new story! This is a story that I’ve wanted to tell for some time, since Grief’s Reunion finished, but until recently I couldn’t peg down exactly how the world I’m going to present was going to work.
> 
> Special thanks go to the following for letting me run my ideas by them and for pointing out where I could strengthen this as much as possible: AnsemD, Toonsgirl27, skeali, VeryEagerPerson.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Zootopia belongs to Disney.

****

**ZOOTOPIA: FUTURES PAST**

PROLOGUE

_Ever heard the tale of the fox who changed the future? Sounds like a clichéd story, I know. But it’s pretty much what happened._

_The story’s been told, sure. About how a naïve little bunny came to Zootopia, dreaming of being a big city cop. Along the way, she was put down by her colleagues. Made to do the only duty fit for a bunny: parking duty. And along the way, she happened to meet this handsome, dashing, charming fox who conned her into thinking that he was trying to buy a Jumbo Pop for his son as a birthday present. Of course, said bunny cop found out it was all a hustle and got very mad. Mam, those were the days… of course, bunny cop also stumbled upon a missing mammals case, and she hustled the fox right back. Made him help her find the missing otter, and in the process, they uncovered a vast conspiracy to cover up the fact that mammals were going savage, headed by none other than the mayor of Zootopia. Not just mammals: predators. Of course, this led to an argument between said bunny and fox and they parted ways. The bunny, horrified at unrest she perceived to be her fault, ran her fuzzy wuzzy tail back to her carrot farm home. I guess that should have been the end of that, but something clicked for her while she was out there. And she rushed back to the city to ask the fox for help. The fox didn’t want to at first, but the bunny was really sincere in acknowledging and even apologising for how much she had hurt the fox. The fox forgave her, and together, they unearthed the true roots of the conspiracy: the mayor, formerly the deputy mayor, had set the whole thing up in an effort to subjugate predators. Thankfully, she did_ not _win. The bunny and fox tricked the mayor into giving up her plan, and the mayor was arrested. And afterward, the bunny even convinced the fox that he too could be a great cop._

_The bunny was Judy Hopps, the most optimistic, outgoing, driven bunny I have ever met. And the fox… that’s me. Nick Wilde. Everybody has heard the story by now. But they would never have heard about the events leading up to it. In some ways, because they haven’t happened yet._

_Had former Mayor Dawn Bellwether won, the future would be bleak. I know, because I’ve seen it already. Carrots would never believe me if I told her that her very words that day at the press conference would help Bellwether, and eventually, a prey supremacist group who had been biding their time, to gain a foothold on Zootopia, to eventually ostracise the predators from Zootopian society. To subjugate them._

Domare Dominatio _. The group that were, or will be, more extreme than even ex-Mayor Bellwether._

_It’s a complex, tangled web I’m about to weave here, but bear with me._

_The first thing to get out of the way is this: I’ve made it sound like everything that has happened up to this point is a coincidence. Do coincidences_ that _big exist?_

_Well, no. No, they do not._

_Can I see the future? Am I a psychic? Nobody can see the future. So how do I know what’s going to happen? Do I cheat? Have I been told all this myself?_

_No. I know what’s going to happen because I’ve_ lived _it. I Nicholas Piberius Wilde, was not born in 1984. In fact, you could say that I didn’t even exist until eleven years ago. But I will exist, I will be born._

_About one hundred years from now._

_I, Nick Wilde, am a time traveller, from a future where predators have it really, really bad._

_It’s odd to think that even my parents haven’t been born yet. My great-grandparents are alive, though._

_And we come full circle to what I was talking about._

_I knew where Judy Hopps would be that day. I purposefully set up my hustle there. I purposefully melted that Jumbo Pop, knowing I was in full view of Judy. What, is it that hard to believe that if I could notice the fox repellent on her belt, I could spot her watching as we melted the Jumbo Pop? Is it difficult to believe that I knew she would follow us into Tundratown, and from there that she would follow us back into Savanna Central to sell those pawpsicles? Then from there to the construction site to sell the leftover sticks to the mouse construction crew in Little Rodentia? She wasn’t exactly well-hidden in that patch of grass as I sold those sticks. If I had truly been surprised, I wouldn’t have handled her confronting me as calmly as I did. It’s all because I knew she was coming._

_But just because I came from the future, it doesn’t mean I know how things will go_ now _. And that is what I meant when I said ‘the fox who changed the future’._

 _The events that allowed_ Domare Dominatio _to take control and subjugate the predator minority one hundred years from now… they’ve been stopped. And all without revealing the future to anybody._

_Well, maybe that’s not true… I had told one mammal when I got here, eleven years ago, where I came from, and I did prove it._

_It’s a long story, but I’ll do my best to tell it. How I came to be, what I saw, how I came back through time to change it all… and how there were others who tried to shore up the prey supremacists._

_This is a story of futures past._


	2. A History of The Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shoutout to the people who reviewed the first chapter, brief though it was:
> 
> FFN: J Shute Norway, AStoryTellerBook, Wrong Password, GhostWolf88, Cimar of Turalis WildeHopps, Robert Escher, TheNightManager, MagicAlpha, KIITCH.  
> AO3: Gunslinger99, x_uve, BewilderZ, WildeHoppsZPD, Sapperjoe85
> 
> And special thanks go to the beta-readers who helped me out with this chapter: J Shute Norway and OnceNeverTwiceAlways.

A HISTORY OF THE FUTURE

_Present Day Zootopia…_

Nick stretched as he got out of his bed. Today was a very important day. Today was the day he was going to graduate from the Zootopia Police Academy, after months of training.

Opening his wardrobe, he looked over his dress uniform. Inside, placed on the floor, was a uniform from another time. It was a sleek black single-piece outfit.

Stacked neatly beside it was the pauldron Nick wore, and underneath that was a pulse rifle.

But that was not what Nick was looking for. He reached into the cabinet and pulled a small disk-shaped object from one of the pockets.

******

_Okay, history lesson time. Imagine, if you will, a future where debonair hustler-fox Nick Wilde did not exist to guide naïve bunny-cop Judy Hopps to the truth behind the savage mammals. What would happen?_

_Well, I can tell you one thing that_ did _happen was that press conference. Carrots has told me that my reaction was what planted the seeds of doubt in her. It hurt her to see me walk away like I did. I confess: I was less angry once I left and more disappointed. I thought I had read Carrots wrong._

_Three months later, she did what I had started to believe was not possible: She acknowledged she was wrong._

_That was something that had not happened in my past. I wasn’t there to get her to question what she thought she knew. I can’t say that she didn’t view what happened as wrong. Knowing Carrots as I do now, I just_ know _she would have been very unsettled once she saw what was unfolding._

_In my past, Carrots would eventually quit the ZPD, upset by the unrest she thought she had caused. However, this would be a year after her press conference. She tried, but she failed to make things right. The cause of the savage mammals was never found._

_At least, that’s the official line._

_Truth was that predator scientists found out that there was an unknown biological agent in all of the affected predators which was believed to have turned them savage. Trouble was that prey scientists took great pains to debunk what their predator counterparts were saying. After all, the predators that had gone savage had not reverted after a short period of time, so what other factor could there be? That these predators simply had it in them from the very start?_

_The prey were seeking an ‘ultimate solution’ to the problem. A company claimed it had come up with it: a collar that was supposed to suppress any indications of savagery in its wearer. Naturally, soon enough, Bellwether passed the Mandatory Collars Act into Zootopian law, forcing predators to wear the ‘Tame Collars’._

_The collars did more than suppress savagery: they administered a shock to the wearer if they got emotional about_ anything _. Feeling particularly happy? You got a shock. Grieving? Hello, electricity, old friend. These things were merciless._

_The law was that all predators had to wear a Tame Collar from the age of ten. As time wore on, the anti-predator sentiment grew to the point in Zootopia where even the collars weren’t seen as enough._

_Enter Domare Dominatio, a hard-line anti-predator group. They promised an end to the threat of savage predators. Their solution? To move predators out of Zootopia and into a separate town. They spread fear. That fear won them the City Council which over time they slowly abolished as they solidified their grip on power. We call the town New Happytown, but it’s anything but a happy place. Predators were barred from entering Zootopia proper, and, every once in a while, there would be a mass ‘demonstration’ (read that as ‘riot’) by prey hardliners that would trample through the town, wrecking the homes of predators who wanted nothing more than to exist in peace._

_Well, ever hear of the saying that you shouldn’t poke a sleeping bear? Sooner or later, the predators were going to resent the way the prey were treating them._

_I was born before the Unrest to a family of suit tailors. My father, Jack Wilde, had married Skye Glacée, and they had me. I was named Nicholas after my father’s father, and my middle name of Piberius came from my mother’s father.  I grew up into that Unrest. My parents…. they were optimists. Foolishly so. They believed that the world would see what was going on here and step in, and that the prey of Neo Zootopia, as the city had become known as, weren’t all as bad as Domare Dominatio._

_The world didn’t care. And, as I learned later, too many of the prey in Neo Zootopia had been suckered in to the official view on predators. Those who didn’t believe were such a minority that they didn’t dare openly state their views._

_One part of my tale to Carrots was that I tried to make friends with a group of prey. I told her that I wanted to be a Junior Ranger Scout. The story I told her was the truth but mixed in with some omissions and some alteration. After all, Carrots must not know where I’m from. I can’t risk her knowing and potentially having the future change more than it already has. All I was here for was to make it better for the predators._

_Not that she’d believe me if I just casually slipped it in to a conversation._

_Hey, Carrots? I’m a time-travelling fox from the future, here to mend the present. Come with me if you want to live._

_I don’t fancy a straightjacket._

******

_New Happytown, like I said, was anything but happy. We lived in a small house that had been repaired a fair few times. It was rickety, but it was home. The one place where, for a while, I could disappear and pretend — for the most part — that the prey supremacy over us predators wasn’t happening._

_My parents were part of a… sort of cross-alliance between sympathetic prey and the predators of New Happytown. Part of that involved the children mixing together._

_As a nine-year-old, I looked forward to making prey friends. I looked forward to being part of a pack._

_Only for the ‘pack’ to rob me of my optimism overnight._

_I told Carrots that they muzzled me, but that wasn’t all they did. They put a collar on me. I was a year too young for the collar, but when the police got involved — all prey, I might add — it was clear they didn’t care. I was only a year shy of being the legal age anyway._

_After that night, I grew up with a jaded view on prey. They didn’t care at all about us. All they saw was a predator who could go savage at any given moment. Those who appeared to want to help were really only doing it because they wanted to make themselves look good — to get in close with the predators and then stick the knife in when we were at our most vulnerable._

_To survive, I ran with a…somewhat shady crowd. We pulled all manner of hustles in order to survive. My parents…they didn’t approve. We had many fights over what I was doing._

_And then, not long after my sixteenth birthday, it happened._

_I was walking home from one of my hustles, when I heard an explosion, followed by an alarm. The alarm was a familiar one: it belonged to my parents’ tailor shop._

******

_One hundred years from now…_

Dread filled every fibre of Nick’s being as he ran down the street to his home. The light on his collar flashed yellow, warning him that he was in danger of receiving a shock, though Nick wasn’t paying attention to it at that point. Predators were running in the opposite direction, as if for their very lives. Every frantic step seemed to be in slow motion to Nick. As he got closer to the sound of the alarm blaring from his home, the smell of smoke filled his nostrils.

“No…” Nick whispered to himself. “No…”

He rounded the corner…

And there was his home, in flames. Predators who had not run in the other direction were standing outside, watching as flames licked the sides of the buildings.

For the briefest of moments, all Nick could do was watch in horror, but then something spurred him to run towards it. The sound of the roaring flames grew thick in his ears as he approached.

Something grabbed hold of Nick by the waist and hauled him back.

“No…” Nick yelled. “No! My parents are in there!”

The light on the collar flashed red, delivering a shock which made him writhe even more. An explosion rocked the house, shattering windows and blowing out the front door. Sirens blared as a fire drone circled around the remains of Nick’s home, launching a suppressant foam from its underbelly. He stopped struggling against the mammal that was holding him back and instead broke down.

“I’m sorry, son…” the mammal said as he let Nick go.

******

_Just like that, my parents were gone. Their charred remains were pulled from the wreckage of my home. The firemammals told me that the fire was an accident: it had started from the old refrigerator in the kitchen._

_Back then, I believed that the prey were to blame. Even if they didn’t set fire to my home and kill my parents directly, they were responsible. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have been living in such a depressing, run-down place, and my parents might still be alive._

_For two years, I heard snide remarks about my parents. At first, it did get to me. It got to me so much that when one of those old bullies resurfaced, I almost went into a rage. If it weren’t for my collar, I might have killed the woodchuck._

_After that, I learned something crucial._

_Never let them see that they get to you. Because they can use that as a weapon._

_Two years after the deaths of my parents, a group within the predator community made itself known. The Predator Liberation Alliance were dismissed as a joke at first. Not a serious threat._

_Then they took responsibility for a series of raids on outer Precincts in Neo Zootopia._

_Domare Dominatio responded by sending a brand-new type of soldier into New Happytown. They called them ‘enforcers’, but us predators know them as ‘Subjugats’ – they’re just as subjugated as we are, if not worse._

_The thing about Subjugats is the fact that they are mass-produced soldiers. Clones. Domare Dominatio didn’t care about the donors — as I later came to learn, prey and predator donors alike were used for the program. They never had to worry about any sort of insubordination thanks to the control devices implanted onto their heads which stripped them of their free will._

_The day that Domare Dominatio unleashed the Subjugats on the world was the day I joined the Predator Liberation Alliance. The Subjugats were a step too far. First my parents, then the usage of mindless slaves to harm and kill more predators._

_The Alliance had found a way to disable the Tame Collars, and they procured weapons. Disabling the collars was a necessity, but it was one that the enemy had not found out about. In the Alliance, everybody had their role. As a fox used to sneaking about, the role of spy-scout was perfect for me, though I could also have chosen to be a sniper. That nature was something that hadn’t exactly faded since I arrived in Old Zootopia. I’ve always been able to sneak around without getting caught._

_I was a part of the Alliance for four years before a terrible truth was discovered._

_For three months, there were infrequent blackouts in Neo Zootopia, except for one place: a building that once belonged to Precinct One in the past._

_I was sent into Neo Zootopia to find out what was going on._

******

Standing atop one of the spires that made up the porch of the old Precinct One building, Nick peered inside. There wasn’t much in the way of lighting, but the camera attached to the side of his head would record everything he saw. The video could be brightened later.

In the centre lobby of the building, there was a raised, circular platform surrounded by machinery. Across the lobby, at the far end, there was a long, thin machine with a nozzle aimed towards the centre of the platform. Prey mammals wandered about, checking machines and taking notes. There were several Subjugats of varying species standing at the foot of the machine.

A deer tapped at the controls attached to the machine, and a low humming noise filled the air as it powered up. The long, thin machine shot a stream of energy which coalesced into an electrical sphere that started to expand outward. As it did so, the lights outside the building started to flicker noticeably.

The electrical cloud suddenly burst, shooting light outward. He covered his eyes. The bright light subsided, and Nick blinked spots from his eyes as he peered back into the building.

Hovering above the platform was a shimmering orb surrounded by what appeared to be shards of glass floating lazily around it.

The deer scientist nodded at the Subjugats, and a rabbit with black-tipped ears stepped forward to get on to the platform.

A plasma bolt struck it down, causing Nick to flinch. He immediately suspected an attack but was stunned when another identical rabbit strolled into the lobby, carrying a small plasma gun aimed toward where the rabbit’s twin had fallen. The deer scientist took out a small machine and waved it over the implant embedded underneath the rabbit’s left ear.

Nick pressed a button on his camera attachment which would allow him to hear what was being said.

“ _JH-325,_ ” the voice of the deer came through. “ _That means that the experiment was a success._ ”

“ _But, sir, we haven’t actually tested it,_ ” came the voice of a pig scientist.

“ _We haven’t in this timeline._ ” The deer said as he nodded. “ _But the fact that JH-325 managed to come through the portal and kill her ‘earlier’ self suggests a timeline where the experiment was a success. It also suggests that the Grandfather Paradox idea isn’t true. How else did she not just fade from existence? I think when something travels through time, it is severed from the time stream. Its actions can change the future from its point of view. She exists as proof of the idea._ ”

******

_Time travel?_

_I didn’t know how they did it, but Domare Dominatio had constructed a time machine._

_I knew what must be done there and then._

_We had to destroy the damn thing. But here’s the issue: I’m just a single fox, all alone in the big city. What can I do but beat a retreat and report back?_

_Like I said, I’m sly, sneaky, slippery…but even I’m not entirely sure how I made it out of the city and back to New Happytown to report to Ari Lionheart, my Commander._

******

“Sir…” Nick said, snapping to attention as Commander Lionheart surveyed him.

“Did you bring anything back on this scouting mission?” Lionheart asked.

“Yes, sir,” Nick replied, taking the recording device from his head and handing it over. Lionheart took the device and plugged it into the screen on his desk. Sitting back, he fast-forwarded the recording.

“To think that the enemy have holograms, and we’re stuck with screens.” Lionheart ignored Nick’s remark as the footage played. Eventually, it got to the part where the Subjugat killed ‘itself’.

“Time travel?” Lionheart raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, sir, that’s what I saw,” Nick confirmed.

Lionheart leaned back in his chair, gazing up at the ceiling of the ramshackle trailer.

“This could change things,” he said. “And not in a good way. Wilde, leave it with me. I’ll take this to the higher-ups, and I’ll try to get something done about it. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.” Nick saluted before he turned around and left the trailer.

******

_It didn’t exactly take long for a decision to come back. At first, some of the higher-ups were disbelieving of what I had found. How could time travel be possible?_

_Nevertheless, they all agreed that something was going on there. Something big. And we had to go and stop whatever it was, before they used it against us._

_We got our orders. We were told to gear up, ready for an assault on Neo Zootopia._

_The plan was simple. We would split into two teams. One would create a diversion to the East of the City Centre, while the other team would launch an assault on the Precinct One building with the intention of capturing it and finding out exactly what Domare Dominatio had created._

_There was just one thing: The order was to mobilise all units. That meant me too, but…_

******

“Sir?” Nick said. “If we’re all going on this mission…. Why am I included in that? You don’t need a scout.”

“We need every predator who can hold a gun. That means even scouts. Here.” Lionheart tossed Nick a pulse rifle, and he examined it briefly. It had a long, sleek barrel on top, with a scope attached. The handle was thick and contained a pressure sensor instead of a traditional trigger. Attached to the bottom of the handle was a much stubbier barrel. It was a deceptively light gun, something Nick could hold with just a single paw.

“And which team are we going to be part of?” Nick asked.

“The one attacking Precinct One,” Lionheart replied.

“ _Attention. Attention,_ ” came a voice over the comms. “ _All units to their designated starting points. Good luck._ ”


	3. Time Travel

TIME TRAVEL

 

_The squad Lionheart assembled was fifteen-strong, including himself. There was Brody Fangmeyer, a big tiger who was missing his left eye. Zephyr Delgato, a lioness who had something of a temper on her. Alfred Fenneckton. Yes, he was as small as he sounds, but I would later come to know a fennec who beat him on the titch scale. Right up the other end of the size scale was Aleksi Koslov, a polar bear with a surprisingly soft side… unless you got on his nerves. Carried a missile launcher and had studied physics and time theory when he was younger. And, of course, moi._

_Our big push started just as another blackout hit Neo Zootopia. It made sense, they probably only tested that machine for a portal that led to just a few minutes in the past. They were going to want to test a portal that went further back._

_I knew that if they could make it work successfully, then it meant big trouble for us._

_The big push into Neo Zootopia took a few hours, not least because we had to be careful not to get spotted before we were ready to attack. It was dawn before we reached our first checkpoint. The distraction plan was simple, the second team were to attack The Tundra, the new district that replaced the old TundraTown. It worked just as we hoped , drawing most of the Subjugats away from the City Centre._

_Our team was ready to move in to our first checkpoint, the Haymarket area of the old Meadowlands district, now named Prey Heights. Nothing is ever plain sailing as far as these attacks on Neo Zootopia go and, to prove me right, not all of the Subjugats in Prey Heights were drawn away. That was planned for, as was their calling of the Sharks. Sharks were drones armed with ‘Suppressor’ cannons and radio activators for the Tame Collars. They were meant to serve as crowd control against predators. And yes, they do look like flying robot sharks, with a horizontal red slit for eyes and engines where the fins on a real shark would be. I didn’t build them so I don’t know why they went with that design._

_Too bad the Tame Collars we wore had been deactivated because, without fail, that’s the first thing Sharks were programmed to try. They would have tried their Suppressors next if it weren’t for our rocketeers shooting them down before they could._

_That left the Subjugats in our way, and I can tell you that cute little bunnies weren’t all that were cloned. Like I said, they cloned both predator and prey for their program. Those in our way were of several different species._

******

“Push forward!” Lionheart ordered as he opened fire on a tiger Subjugat, before diving behind a parked hovertaxi as the tiger fired back.

“Got you, Sir!” Nick called out as he took aim at the tiger’s head and squeezed off a shot, downing it instantly. He dove behind cover as a deer shot at him, and watched as Fangmeyer shot the creature down.

“Okay, Wilde?” he called out.

“Yes, Sergeant,” Nick replied.

Fangmeyer nodded as he opened fire on a sheep Subjugat. It collapsed to the ground with a dull thud. As it fell, Nick turned to seek out another target but found the enemy’s forces thinning.

“Push forward!” Lionheart ordered.

As he came out from cover a spotlight shone on him. Looking up, he saw another Shark hovering overhead, guns primed and aimed at him. Nick flung himself from cover and aimed down his scope at the Shark’s visual sensor before letting off a burst. The shots rang true and sparks flew from the damaged component, before the Shark, which had started opening fire, dove towards the ground, unable to see its target. As it collided it exploded into a ball of flame. Lionheart shuffled back to find cover. As he ducked behind a dumpster, he took a deep breath. He looked up and gave Nick a nod before pulling a small round device from a pouch on his belt. Nick understood what was about to happen and he returned to cover as Lionheart threw the small orb at the incoming Subjugats.

There was a loud booming sound, followed by a crackling sound. Electricity arced from where the orb had detonated to a good three metres around it, and all the Subjugats in range simply fell, as if their strings had been cut.

“Been saving that one…” Lionheart remarked as he took aim at a hare Subjugat that had remained out of range of the blast and shot it.

******

_Our ‘welcoming’ committee dispatched, we made our way to the nearby subway station. The plan was to cut through the subway station lines. Haymarket Station was very close to where we had skirmished with the Subjugats and, once we disappeared down into the subway system we could go anywhere, and they would not know where that was until we re-emerged. On top of that, Sharks, being over seven metres in length, couldn’t follow us in._

_It may seem like a long way from Haymarket to the old Precinct One building, which sat underneath Savanna Hill in the south of Neo Zootopia, but we had a plan. We had examined schematics that showed us old service tunnels, which would provide us with a shortcut to Precinct One. It might take an hour or so, but we would be safe._

_The trip was… uneventful. Quiet. Almost too quiet. If I had been asked, I would have said I expected an ambush at the other end, but I’m sure the idea would have been silenced anyway. There’s no way for them to know where we’re going. For all they know, wee could be going for the City Hall, or the science facilities producing the Subjugats._

_Like I said, the trip to our destination was quiet, but it wound up placing us close Grand Savanna Central Hoverrail Station, which sat not far from Precinct One at all._

******

Lionheart glanced over the barrier outside the station. He ducked back down quickly.

“Well?” Fangmeyer asked.

“A full squad of Subjugats,” was Lionheart’s response. Nick peered through a small gap in the fence, confirming for himself what Lionheart had said.

“What do we do?” Nick asked. Lionheart thought for a moment.

“We can attempt a pincer manoeuvre.” Fenneckton suggested. Lionheart thought on the suggestion for a moment.

“Thoughts?” Lionheart asked.

“An alternative might be to sneak around them, but even if we get inside unseen, we’ll likely have to use force to take control of the device,” Nick pointed out. “Best take care of them now, before they can box us in.”

Lionheart surveyed his squad. He dug into his pouch and pulled out a handful of EMP detonators.

“Take one each. Make ‘em count,” Lionheart said as he passed them to the members of his squad.

******

_The plan was to fry the Subjugats that were in our way. There was the risk that there were more inside, and we couldn’t risk detonating an EMP inside the Precinct One building until we knew exactly what we were dealing with. We had come this far, and we had to take the chance._

_******_

Nick snuck around the outskirts of the deactivated fountain in the Savanna Central Plaza. When he was in position, he tapped his radio to notify Lionheart that he was in position.

It only took a minute before Lionheart responded.

“ _On the count of three, let loose._ ”

Nick held his EMP detonator ready, his thumb over the pressure switch.

“ _One._ ”

Nick drew his arm back.

“ _Two._ ”

He tensed his legs, ready to spring up and throw the detonator.

“ _Three!_ ”

Nick sprang up and threw the detonator towards the ground. It struck the hard concrete at about six metres away from him and bounced as the Subjugat group nearby turned towards him. Before they could fire their weapons the EMP detonated and, in the cloud of electrical energy, the Subjugats fell, their implants fried. Across the Plaza, the same thing happened, leaving only a small number of unaffected Subjugats.

It didn’t take long for the team to take those Subjugats out and proceed to the steps of Precinct One. The door was locked.

“Stand back.” Fangmeyer ordered, as he pulled a small amount of explosive from his belt and shoved it onto the door. He nodded to Nick, who raised his pulse rifle and shot at the waiting charge. The door blew open, heat flaring from the explosion. Nick’s ears rang as he stepped back to avoid the blast wave and, as the pain died down, Lionheart nodded to him and headed in first, followed by the larger members of his squad. Nick followed them inside.

“Everybody stay right where you are!” Lionheart bellowed at the gathered prey scientists inside the Precinct lobby.

“Sir, we’re bound to have more on our tails soon,” Delgato pointed out.

“Seal the entrance,” Lionheart ordered, “It will buy us some time.”

“With pleasure,” Koslov replied, as he pulled his rocket launcher and took aim at the doorframe. With a whoosh, a rocket shot towards the frame and exploded on contact, buckling the old frame and causing it to cave in.

With the immediate concern of the possibility of retaliation out of the way, Lionheart’s squad turned its attention to the machine situated in the centre of the lobby.

“You’re too late, Chompers,” a sheep scientist piped up.

“Shut it, Bleeter,” Delgato snarled.

The sheep scientist responded by pulling out a small trigger device from his pocket. It was designed to automatically trigger the Tame Collars within a certain distance. Nick had to stop himself from laughing out loud, though evidently a smirk still crept onto his face as the sheep turned towards him, with a sound that might have been an attempt at a growl.

“Find this funny, Chomper?” the sheep spat. “Well, see how you like a maximum shock!”

With that, he pressed the trigger.

Nothing happened. The sheep pressed it again.

“What’s the matter?” Delgato sneered, “Cat got your tongue?”

The sheep’s expression quickly changed from rage to fear. He glanced to his cohorts who all raised paws and hooves.

“Start talking,” Lionheart demanded. “What do you mean by ‘we’re too late’?”

The sheep, the only one who had not put his hooves up, gnashed his teeth and refused to talk, so Lionheart nodded to Fangmeyer. Fangmeyer trained his weapon on a pig scientist.

“One of you will talk.” Lionheart said.

“What are you going to do? Kill us?” the sheep remarked.

“No.” Lionheart let a sly smile onto his lips. “But I _will_ order my mammals to start stunning. Who knows? The discharge might set this thing off by accident… and who knows where that portal ends up? Could end up yesterday… or tomorrow… five hundred years in the past… thousands of years ago before we all evolved from our _savage, primitive ways…_ ”

The sheep’s expression betrayed his fear yet again.

“It’s a sensitive piece of equipment!” the pig protested, “You could kill us all!”

******

_Oh, I had no doubt Lionheart might have carried through with his threat, but I was pretty sure that the prey scientists’ protestations about killing us all were a stalling tactic. The question was this: who would make the first move? Would a scientist reveal what we wanted to know? Or would Lionheart order us to start stunning._

_Guess who cracked first?_

_It’s called a hustle._

******

“We sent a Subjugat team back!” a deer scientist shouted.

“Shut up, Deerford!” the sheep scientist snarled.

“‘Back’ where?” Lionheart demanded.

“2016!” Deerford trembled.

“Why there?” Nick asked.

“Because that’s when the Savage Predator Incident took place…” Fenneckton remarked. Nick looked thoughtfully at Fenneckton, before his face lit up as realisation dawned on him.

“They’re trying to shore up their position early on.” Nick stated.

“We can’t let that happen…” Lionheart said. He turned to the sheep and raised his gun, before issuing an order: “You! Start this thing up! Set it to the same year that you just sent that squad back to!”

“Eat dirt, Chomper!” the sheep responded.

“Thought you might say that.” Lionheart remarked, before pulling the trigger. The sheep dropped to the floor.

“Anybody else want to join him?” Lionheart asked.

Deerford, hooves still raised, stumbled forward and stepped up to the control console.

“I hate to point out the obvious, Sir, but you don’t want to send a huge team back.” Koslov stated, “You might risk damaging the timeline _too_ much.”

Lionheart considered this for a moment.

“I need a volunteer.” Lionheart said finally, “One will do.”

“To go through that portal and do… what, exactly?” Fenneckton asked.

Lionheart paced backwards and forwards for a moment, in thought.

“Sir?” Fangmeyer asked.

“We need to remove a vital cog from the machine that causes the unrest,” Lionheart remarked. He pulled a holodisk from his belt and slotted it into a nearby terminal. Tapping away furiously, he quickly found whatever it was he was looking for.

“This will do.” Lionheart said, plugging his holodisk into the machine and typing in a series of commands. The machine bleeped, indicating it had finished the transfer of whatever it was that Lionheart had found.

“This will be the target.” Lionheart said, holding out the holodisk and pressing a button on it. A holographic screen shone from it, showing a rabbit in a strange-looking uniform. It was an old news report from ZNN titled ‘ _ZPD’s First Rabbit Officer: Savage Predators Caused By Biology?_ ’

Lionheart pressed a button and the video started playing.

“ _What can you tell us about the animals going savage?_ ” came a reporter’s question.

“ _Uh… well…_ ” Hopps stammered, “ _The animals going savage… they’re all predators. They’ve been reported missing for a while by families and friends._ ”

“ _Can you confirm that it’s only predators going savage?_ ” came another voice.

“ _That… that is accurate, yes,_ ” Hopps replied.

“ _Why? Why is this happening?!_ ” came a frantic voice.

“ _We… don’t yet know the cause,_ ” Hopps admitted, “ _But… it could be that it’s something to do with… with their biology. Something in their… DNA._ ”

“ _Can you elaborate on that?_ ” came the voice of the reporter who asked Judy to confirm that predators were the only ones going savage.

“ _Certainly… thousands of years ago, predators were able to survive through their aggressive hunting instincts,_ ” Hopps elaborated, “ _We don’t yet know the cause of this, but it seems that some predators are reverting to those primitive, savage instincts._ ”

“ _Will more predators go savage?_ ” came the frantic voice again.

“ _What will the ZPD do to protect us?_ ”

“ _Will the ZPD issue a mandatory quarantine?_ ”

“ _Okay, thank you, Officer Hopps,_ ” came a meek-sounding voice as a diminutive ewe came to the podium, “ _We don’t have time for any more questions, I’m afraid. The ZPD and Mayor’s Office press teams will take any further inquiries. Thank you._ ”

The recording stopped.

“I want whoever goes back to remove her,” Lionheart said. “It’s that very speech that started the unrest.”

******

_Yes, I’ve killed plenty of Subjugats before. After all, the whole fight was a fight for the survival and freedom of predators. But this was the first time I had ever been told to ‘remove’ a real-life living being. I will admit that I had a lot of misgivings._

_The issue I had was that I had to voice those misgivings in a way that wouldn’t seem like insubordination. I still had a lot of respect for Lionheart._

******

“‘Remove her, Sir?” Nick said, feeling a little uneasy, “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Whatever you want it to, Wilde.” Lionheart responded. Nick thought about that.

A surge of energy burst onto the platform in the centre of the machine and a shimmering portal opened. Everybody turned their attention to it. It wasn’t very big.

“The one from before was bigger.” Nick frowned.

“That’s all the energy I can get to it,” The deer said. “And it won’t stay open for long either.”

“Quickly! A volunteer!” Lionheart turned back to his squad. They all looked at each other, unsure who to ask.

“I’ll do it,” Nick finally piped up, stepping forward.

“You sure, son?” Lionheart asked. “Foxes had it bad back then too. You’ll be looked down upon just because of your species, while the mistrust that extends to all of us now won’t affect other species nearly as much. You’ll be shunned for being sly, shifty.”

“So long as there aren’t collars, I’ll be fine,” Nick said.

Lionheart shut his eyes and let out a deep breath.

“Alright, Wilde…” Lionheart said, “Take this.” Lionheart pressed a button on his holodisk. Nick’s own holodisk beeped and he picked it up from his belt. Lionheart had just transferred the information he had downloaded to Nick.

Pocketing the holodisk, he stared at the portal.

“Here goes…” Nick remarked, trailing off near the end. He stepped onto the platform but, before he walked into the portal, he turned around.

******

_Never let them see that they get to you, right? That’s what I’ve always said. But I would have been lying if I said that saying goodbye didn’t hurt. I’d be leaving everything I knew behind. Yes, it was to make the future a better place for predators, but these guys had been my brothers and sisters for some time. Saying goodbye hurt. I’m pretty sure I had to work hard to stop myself from giving them a tearful farewell, to make myself appear like it didn’t affect me that much._

_I was pretty sure I fooled nobody, though._

******

“Guess this is goodbye,” Nick said, his voice straining slightly as he tried to keep his emotions in check, “Short stuff, behave yourself.” He looked at Fenneckton.

“If you meet my great grandpa, I hope he bites your face off for that one.” Fenneckton growled.

“Control that temper, Tantrum!” Nick said to Delgato.

“Bite me, you ass.” Delgato replied.

“Now that’s speciest to donkeys,” Nick laughed. He turned to Koslov next.

“No words needed, Big Guy.” Nick smiled.

“Take care of yourself, Nick.” Koslov nodded.

 Nick turned finally to Lionheart and brought his paw up into a proud salute. “Sir… it’s been a pleasure.”

“Would you get going, Wilde!” Lionheart replied, though there was a slight trace of a smile on his face as he said that.

“Okay… here goes…” Nick said, turning back towards the portal. He clutched his rifle as he stepped towards the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutouts to those who reviewed since I last updated:
> 
> FFN: J Shute Norway, GhostWolf88, Wrong Password, AStoryTellerBook, KIITCH, StuBat.  
> AO3: SapperJoe85, x_uve
> 
> And, once again, special thanks go to the beta-readers who helped me out with this chapter: J Shute Norway, TheNightManager.


	4. The Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that there’s been a bit of a gap between the last chapter and this one. My life has been a bit of a whirlwind in all directions these past few weeks and it’s taken this long for me to process it all and return my focus to the story. Also, Futures Past is now featured on ZNN! And welcome to all the new readers! Thank you for the support, it means a lot!
> 
> As usual, I’m going to give shoutouts to those who reviewed since I last updated:
> 
> FFN: Wrong Password, GhostWolf88, KIITCH, AStoryTellerBook, Cimar of Turalis WildeHopps, bill5499, Omnitrix 12, WellMeetAgain  
> AO3: MetalFox2013, Anteroinen, CombatEngineer, Sapperjoe85, x_uve, SaberGatomon, Gunslinger99, Jack_Kellar, bionicbellasawn, WildeHoppsZPD, D3ath_ops, 93PenguinImperator  
> DeviantArt: Cimar-WildeHopps
> 
> Apologies if I have forgotten to give a shoutout to anyone from these sites. And, once again, special thanks go to the beta-readers who helped me out with this chapter: Stubat and Cimar of Turalis/WildeHopps.
> 
> With that out of the way, let’s go on to the chapter. Enjoy!

THE PAST

_Aside from a slight pull when I stepped into the portal, I felt nothing as I walked through. The light became blinding once inside but it quickly dimmed as I emerged on the other side._

_I certainly didn’t expect to have a fateful encounter as soon as I stepped through the portal._

******

Nick blinked spots from his eyes as his vision slowly returned to him. He looked around, the first thing noticed was the lack of light. Looking up at the sky, Nick could see the stars, which meant that wherever he was, it was night. Inspecting the rest of his surroundings, he assumed he was in some sort of alleyway. A van sat parked in an alcove to Nick’s left, with the rear doors facing outward.

A strange noise came from behind Nick and he turned as the portal shrank and vanished with a sharp, metallic, ringing sound.

“Well, they did say it would be a one-way trip.” Nick said to himself.

Nick turned as the sounds of small pawsteps reached his ears. There was a small fox approaching him, dressed in dark colours.

The first thing that crept into Nick’s mind was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

“Hey, kid? Isn’t it a little late for you to be wandering the streets? Where’re your parents?”

“Who you callin’ kid, ya cosplayin’ weirdo?” the ‘kid’ fox replied in the deepest voice Nick could ever remember hearing. “You wanna keep yo’ face?”

Taken aback by the unusually deep voice coming from the diminutive fox, Nick found himself at a loss for words.

“Yeah, you’d better be quiet…” the fennec said, tripping over something as he glared up at Nick.

“Damn it, Badge! Put your damn camera setups out of the way!” Finnick cursed when he saw the object he had tripped on: a small box with a wire trailing all the way up to a camera attached to the nearby wall. And the camera was pointed in Nick’s direction.

“Oh, no…” Nick said.

“What?” the fennec said, before a small chuckle left him. He added: “You worried the neighbourhood nutjob saw somethin’?”

“Uh… Yeah?” Nick said.

“Nobody’s gonna believe what she has to say!” the fennec laughed. “You could say you were an alien fox from outer space, and as long as she backs you up, nobody would believe you! Sooner believe you were doin’ it as part of some hustle, though.”

The fennec opened the back doors of the van that Nick had spotted before. He clambered in and pulled out a bottle. Popping the top of it, he took a deep swig.

“Ah, that hits the spot,” the fennec said. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Now _you’re_ calling _me_ a kid?” Nick raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, if I had to guess, early twenties, which makes you younger than me. So, ‘kid’.” The fennec replied.

“You’re not wrong…” Nick mumbled as he approached the van, “Name’s Wilde. Nick Wilde.”

“Well, Nick Wilde… how’d you get into this neighbourhood?” the fennec asked, swigging from the bottle again.

“Wait, aren’t you at least going to tell me _your_ name?” Nick asked.

“Call me ‘Finnick’.”

“‘Finnick’?”

“Don’t ask,” he stated with a glare, pointing the bottle at Nick “And don’t ask me my real name either. Rather a stranger not know it… never know how slippery a tongue is ‘round these parts.”

As Finnick went to take another swig from the bottle, a strange tune came from his pocket. Grumbling to himself, Finnick put the bottle down and fished a flip-top phone from his pocket. Nick stared curiously at the ancient device as Finnick answered it.

“What do you want?” Finnick demanded in a gruff voice. There was silence for some time before Finnick spoke again.

“You want me to do _what_? You know I’ve already been drinking, right? What, you want me to drive across town when you know that the ZPD will probably pull my ass over for the most stupid reason and then actually manage to book me?”

There was a moment of relative silence.

“Fine, whatever…” Finnick replied, “But if I get pulled, _you’re_ payin’ the fine. And maybe the bail too.”

Putting the flip phone away, Finnick clambered up into the driver’s seat.

“Crazy Badge…” Finnick grumbled.

 “What’s wrong?” Nick asked.

“Why do I put up wit’ her?” Finnick replied evasively. “I need a bar buddy. Got the feeling I’m gonna hit the sauce tonight. Interested?”

“Whoa, we just met…” Nick said, “And I have… things to do.”

“Like what?” Finnick raised an eyebrow. Nick decided it was best not to answer.

“Look, why don’t we get to know each other better?” Finnick suggested. “What better way is there but to get drunk together? Where you from anyway?”

“Would you believe me if I said I came from the future?” Nick asked, allowing a slight sarcastic tone into his voice. He clambered into the van’s passenger seat.

“I’d believe you was as crazy as Badge.” Finnick started the van and reversed it out of its space. Nick remained silent for a moment, contemplating his answer.

“… Happytown,” Nick said finally.

Finnick winced. “Damn, fox… that’s gotta have been a rough upbringin’ if you was from _there_.”

“My parents did their best… but they barely got by. Had to hustle to help them out. I was about twelve when I started.”

“Where are your folks now?”

“They’re dead,” Nick said flatly.

“Aw, shoot…” Finnick turned away a little, his expression falling slightly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Nick answered. “They died years ago. Been on my own since… I’ve had friends, but… I had to leave them behind.”

“I know dat. Sucks, don’t it,” Finnick responded with what Nick guessed was supposed to be sympathy.

“Sure does,” Nick agreed somberly.

Nothing more was said as Finnick took them, somewhat steadily despite his professed inebriation, to their destination: a bar styled like a gigantic den. The sign above the door said ‘The Set’. As he pulled up, he let out an exasperated sigh as Nick spotted a honey badger dressed in what could only be described as combat fatigues emerging from the bar doors.

“This is him?” the badger said, “Fin, this is him, right?”

“What is this?” Nick demanded in an annoyed tone.

“Gotta up your hustle game, Kid, if you fell for that one,” Finnick said as he got out of the van. “Badge… you owe me. I’m gonna be in the bar.”

Finnick walked off and left Nick alone with the honey badger, who promptly seized hold of Nick’s paw and dragged him towards a side door which she kicked open. Dragging Nick inside, she shut the door quickly and pushed Nick down the corridor before opening a door marked ‘Security – Authorised Personnel Only’. She motioned for Nick to enter the room, which was filled with monitors. The monitors all showed various parts of the city.

“What is this?” Nick asked a second time.

“I have cameras in places I know that _they_ are seen at,” Badge explained.

“… who?” Nick asked.

“The _Sheep_ , of course!” Badge replied in an irritated tone.

“I’m not interested in sheep,” Nick responded.

“And I’m not interested in teleporters,” Badge huffed. “But here is a teleporter right before me.”

******

_My first instinct was, of course, to write this honey badger off as totally deluded. But my mind changed when I saw that one of the screens displayed the alleyway I had arrived in. The honey badger tapped in a command and the screen flickered for a moment. Then a light burst into view… and there was me, stepping out from it._

_Darn… found out within seconds of arrival. What am I to say now?_

_As I stared at the screen, I noticed something else: the date was in the corner._

_17 July, 2006._

_2006._

_Oh, no. No, no, no. Was the 1 next to the 0 on the keypad or something? How could they open a portal to a time ten years before I needed to be here?_

******

“Hey, you look like you seen a ghost.” Badge said.

“Not… exactly.” Nick replied quietly.

“Wanna know what I think?”

Nick scoffed a bit. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway.”

“I think you’re not from here.”

“You think?” Nick was hoping she’d pick up on the sarcasm in his voice, yet the badger barrelled on, oblivious to it.

“Technology doesn’t exist to teleport somebody… not yet, anyhow.”

Badge’s statement caught Nick’s attention.

“So, if it doesn’t exist now… you have to come from the future.”

Nick laughed.

“Who’d believe something like that?” Nick chuckled.

“Well, if the Cudspiracy follows through, wouldn’t it make sense for some sort of ‘predator resistance’ to send somebody back to make sure the Cudspiracy doesn’t happen?”

“‘Cudspiracy’?” Nick repeated incredulously.

“The sheep, mam! Sheep!” Badge said irritably. “They’re trying to take over and dominate us preds! And you’re here, teleported out of nowhere that makes sense apart from the future! Surely you’re here to do something about it!”

******

_This Badge mammal was crazy, but sometimes even crazy mammals have a point. While I could safely say that the sheep weren’t behind it all, there were sheep involved. After all, could Domare Dominatio have gotten so ingrained into the Zootopian government had Dawn Bellwether not become so distrustful of predators after the Savage Mammals incidents? Domare Dominatio did have its fair share of sheep chairmammals, but it was clear that sheep were far from the only ones behind what was going on where I came from._

_At that moment, I realised something: crazy as though this Badge was, she might be able to help in some way. After all, was I not here to change the past?_

******

Sighing wistfully, Nick looked back to Badge.

“Alright,” Nick conceded.

“‘Alright’ what?” Badge said.

“I _did_ come from the future,” Nick confessed.

“Knew it,” Badge replied smugly.

“You’re believing me too easily,” Nick pointed out. “I’m a fox, so I could be pulling some sort of hustle… Hey!” Badge picked the holodisk from Nick’s belt and pressed the button. It flared to life, the holographic screen showing the last recording opened.

“Is that what I think it is?” Badge asked.

“A bunny in a cop outfit? Sure,” Nick replied.

“Bunny cop… heard it all now,” Badge muttered as she passed the holodisk back to Nick.

“What? You believe I came from the future, yet the idea of a bunny cop is ‘out there’?” Nick said incredulously.

“Bunny cops just aren’t a thing. But judging by that recording… you might have come back a little farther than you thought you would.”

“Got me there,” Nick replied quietly. “I was supposed to arrive in 2016, not 2006.”

“Yet that’s got to be a good thing,” Badge suggested.

“Yeah? How so?”

“More prep time! Keep up! And if you’re _this_ far back, you can even create a whole new history for yourself! Let’s see…”

Badge jumped on to a computer and started frantically typing.

“What’s your name?” Badge asked.

“Nick Wilde,” Nick replied.

“Full name,” Badge said.

“Nicholas P. Wilde.”

“Nicholas Wilde…” Badge said, “By the way, I’m Honey.”

“‘Honey’? With the nickname ‘Badge’?” Nick said. “Wait, don’t tell me your last name is ‘Badger’?”

Nick burst out laughing.

“A honey badger called Honey Badger!” Nick chortled. “This is rich! When do I get to meet Bunny Rabbit? What about Tim Burr Wolf?”

“What does the ‘P’ stand for in your name?” Badge asked. Nick immediately stopped laughing.

“Why do you want to know _that_?” Nick responded defensively.

“Because if I’m going to build a profile of you, I’m going to need to know as much as possible about you,” Badge pointed out.

“How are you going to do that?” Nick asked.

“I have a back door into the government’s systems, duh!” Badge rolled her eyes. “How else do you think I can keep an eye on these Cudspirators? Did you think I just _happened_ to set up a camera in that alleyway? I knew they’d been around the area because I’ve been inside the network!”

“And you are not in prison… how?” Nick wondered incredulously.

“All I usually do is look. And I know where the logs are kept so I can clean traces of myself off the system. _This_ is going to be a bit trickier but I _can_ do it. So I’m gonna have to ask again: what does the ‘P’ stand for?”

“Ugh, fine…” Nick relented. “It stands for Piberius.”

Badge spun around to stare curiously at Nick. For a moment, that was all she did, before she burst out laughing.

“Really? ‘Piberius’?” Badge howled. “And _I’m_ the one with the funny name?”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up…” Nick muttered.

“You sure you’re from the future and not the past?” Badge chuckled.

“Look, my grandfather was called Piberius. I’m lucky that it wound up my middle name and not my first,” Nick explained.

Badge’s chuckles subsided as she spun back around to the computer.

“Okay, so Nicholas… _Piberius_ … Wilde…” Badge continued typing away, barely hiding a snicker as she repeated Nick’s middle name.

******

_I was there a while as Honey ‘Badge’ Badger reeled off a lot of questions. She did adjust my backstory to fit the present day: according to the story she put together, I had tried to join the Junior Ranger Scouts when I was nine… or was it eight? Whatever… but what had happened had left me disillusioned, with the belief that if all the world was going to see was that a fox was shifty and untrustworthy, then there was no point being anything else. I set up hustles since the age of twelve and fell out with my mother, who had not seen me in about a year. I had never been arrested, because the hustles I had pulled were not technically illegal, just a little immoral._

_Badge was thorough. She even set me up a nice little rundown apartment nearby. Technically, it was just an office and the bed was in the bottom drawer of an elephant-sized cabinet. Still, it did beat sleeping under a bridge..._

******

“And… done!” Badge spun around on her chair, looking Nick up and down.

“What?” Nick said.

“You might wanna change your clothes,” Badge replied. “You’re gonna look awful weird in _that_ getup.”

Nick glanced down at his uniform. “You may have a point.”

“Here’s some money… get yourself something decent.” Badge shoved money into Nick’s paws and pushed him out the door.

******

_Leaving my pauldron and combat packs with Badge, I went shopping for more… suitable clothes. The clothes maketh the fox, so they say, so I made sure to pick out what I felt was the best for me. Shirts with patterns, striped ties, plain slacks… I changed before I returned to the Den, but when I returned, I was met with a… somewhat interesting reception._

******

“What in the name of the gaudy gods are you wearing?” Badge said.

“What?” Nick shrugged. “This is as good as any outfit!”

Nick was wearing a turquoise shirt with a palm tree pattern, a lilac tie, and off-white slacks. The bag he was carrying had two more pairs of slacks, half a dozen ties, and seven similarly gaudy-looking shirts.

“Your tie doesn’t even match the shirt!” Badge tried to stifle a laugh. “You trying to blend in or stand out?”

“Hiding in plain sight is a good idea,” Nick defended. “I’ll get looked at like I’m a little crazy so mammals won’t say ‘who’s that ordinary-looking fox? He must be up to something’.”

“Can’t argue with that logic…” Badge replied. “But you’re gonna need to find yourself somethin’ to do.”

Badge pondered for a moment.

“I know a few people… let me see what I can do.” Badge said.

“Well, I know nobody, so…” Nick answered.

“Honey, trust me… by the time we’re done here, you’re gonna know _everybody_.”

“ _I’m_ Nick, _you’re_ Honey.” Nick replied, a tone of sarcasm in his voice.

******

_So ended the life of Nicholas Wilde, the soldier from the future, and the start of the life of Nick Wilde, hustler extraordinaire. I wasn’t as silver-tongued back then as I would become, but Badge was right: I did learn to know everybody._

_Badge introduced me to one Antonio Shrew, an up-and-coming… entrepreneur, who had friends with some serious muscle. He had made friends with two polar bears by the name of Raymond and Kevin, and at the time, he was working for Boris Koslov in Tundratown. It turned out that Antonio, Kevin and Raymond had saved Koslov’s son once, so when Koslov decided it was time to hand over the reins of the family business, Antonio Shrew became the most feared crime boss in Tundratown: Mr. Big._

_And as I would find out to my detriment, Mr. Big was not somebody you wanted to cross._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s a wrap for this chapter of Futures Past! The next two chapters will tie up the introduction, and then we get to the new stuff afterward!
> 
> I’ll be working on the second chapter of Battle of the Kings soon, and the next two chapters of this story will also be posted together. Until next time!


	5. From A Different Perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, readers! Sorry for the long wait between chapters! I’ve been busy with uni lately so haven’t had too much time to work on either of my stories. This is the last part of the ‘setup’ for what I have planned. After that, it’s all new territory.
> 
> Special thanks go to the beta readers: Stubat and J. Shute Norway.
> 
> As usual, I’m going to give shoutouts to those who reviewed since I last updated:
> 
> FFN: Robert Escher, GhostWolf88, WellMeetAgain, Cimar of Turalis/WildeHopps  
> AO3: Sapperjoe85, x_uve, WildeHoppsZPD  
> DeviantArt: Cimar-WildeHopps
> 
> Apologies if I have forgotten to give a shoutout to anyone from these sites.

FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

_I worked with Mr. Big for years after that, using that connection to get to know everybody I could. In spite of Mr. Big being the most feared Tundratown crime boss, he never asked me to do anything that was more than ‘legally dubious’ and, technically, I wasn’t really even working for him properly, but he did consider my need to know everybody as a way of getting me to run ‘errands’ – often this just meant delivering items of a dubious nature. He never had me deliver anything outright illegal – if anything, some of the runs he sent me on were perfectly legal. He just expected me to be stopped and searched because of my species, and I tolerated it. After all, there was no better way of getting to know how the system worked than to agitate it._

_The Big family wasn’t all errands and stops for me though. Mr. Big’s gram-mama, Sofia Rodenton, took a liking to me and because of that Mr. Big trusted me._

_So, what did I do? The only thing a shifty and untrustworthy fox of this age could do._

_I used that trust to my advantage, then I broke it._

_After Sofia’s death, Mr. Big had asked me to procure a wool rug for him to bury her in. He promised to pay me well for it. It wouldn’t have been very big – after all, how big a rug does a shrew need?_

_I used my new connections to find a barber in the Grasslands District. I knew I couldn’t just march in there and ask for wool clippings, especially as the barber was run by an ill-tempered goat by the name of Mr. Horner. So I did what I had to: I waited for the barber to dump his clippings outside for collection, and then I went and helped myself._

_It was all a big misunderstanding. Clearly, Mr. Horner had branched out to clipping other mammals’ fur. I had not taken wool clippings to a rug maker like I had thought. I had taken skunk clippings. And worst of all: I had taken the clippings from the rear end of a skunk too. It would have been a disaster had Mr. Big found out._

_Of course, nobody pulls the wool over Mr. Big’s eyes for long at all. He found out within the week after Sofia’s burial. He did not see it as a misunderstanding, and it was clear to see that, given he had Raymond and Kevin haul me in none-too-gently._

******

Nick was kneeling in front of the desk in Mr. Big’s office. Raymond and Kevin pinned him in place. Koslov sat behind the desk, and Big looked down at Nick with disapproval in his eyes.

“Would you like to explain yourself, Nicky?” Big asked.

“It’s a simple misunderstanding,” Nick protested. “I swear I didn’t know!”

“I asked you for a wool rug to bury gram-mama in,” Big said, anger starting to seep into his voice. “And you get me a rug made from a skunk’s butt. After everything I have done for you, Nicky, and you give me this ultimate insult.”

Nick struggled as Kevin and Raymond hauled him up.

“Please, sir!” Nick struggled, “I’ll do whatever you want! Just don’t ice me!”

Big studied Nick’s terrified features carefully.

“You’re lucky I owe Badge for finding me something I needed,” Big said, “but that won’t protect you forever. I’ll let you live now, but if I ever see your face around here again, I’ll have you iced. Get out, and never darken my doorway again.” Big motioned to the door. Kevin and Raymond dragged Nick out of the house, up the driveway of the Big Estate and straight for the river that flowed through Tundratown.

“Wait, he said he wouldn’t ice me!” Nick protested.

“What the Boss doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Kevin snarled.

As they dragged Nick towards the frozen Tundratown river a sudden light blazed down on all three. Kevin and Raymond stopped as the light quickly grew closer, the pair dropping Nick and scurrying towards the safety of the driveway as Finnick’s van pulled up. Finnick threw the door open.

“Get in!” Finnick barked. Nick scrambled into the passenger seat and Finnick spun the van around in the snow and took off. The tiny fox glanced at Nick.

“Thank the stars for their flight reflex there!” Nick remarked.

“Either you got stones that I never knew you had or you’re unbelievably stupid to think you’d get away with selling Big a skunk butt rug,” Finnick said.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Nick retorted.

“And you almost wasn’t,” Finnick raised his voice. “If it weren’t for Badge’s camera hacking, ya think I would be here to grab ya?”

“I owe you, Fin.” Nick leaned back in his seat.

“You owe me more than the one,” Finnick grunted. “I’ll collect it later off ya, and you’d better believe I will.”

******

_It was only a couple of months after the skunk-butt rug incident that a certain piece of news caught the attention of a certain honey badger who had a glimpse of the future I came from._

_In that time, mammals had started going missing. Predominantly predators. Up to that point, fourteen of them had gone missing._

_I knew that this was it: this was how it all began. Pretty soon, I would hear of the graduation of Judy Hopps, and her assignment to Precinct One._

******

Blearily stepping outside, Nick picked up the newspaper from his front door. He brought it inside as he headed for the kettle to brew himself a coffee to help him wake up.

“Ugh… hate mornings…” Nick mumbled to himself as he picked up his mug and drank deeply from it.

His phone vibrated and he picked it up. There were messages from several of Nick’s contacts. He scrolled down and found the one from ‘Big Guy’ and opened it:

_‘If you think I’m gonna wear this, you’re gonna meet Triple-B!’_

Attached to the message was a picture of Finnick glaring disdainfully at his most recent ‘disguise’: a baby elephant onesie with a heart on its front. Nick couldn’t help but snicker. ‘Triple-B’ referred to the baseball bat Finnick kept in the back of his van.

Nick had been running a new hustle that enabled him to make pawpsicles. The hustle involved making Finnick dress up in various outfits as his ‘son’. The outfits tended to vary, but the method was the same: Nick would take Finnick into an ice cream parlour to pick a Jumbo Pop, claiming it was for Finnick’s birthday, only for Nick to ‘forget’ his wallet. Finnick would then mimic crying, which would result in some poor sap paying for the Jumbo Pop. They would then melt down the Jumbo Pop into improvised moulds. He then sold the pawpsicles on for a profit.

The baby elephant outfit was just one in a line of recent disguises Nick had put together for Finnick. Anything to make the fennec fox seem ridiculously cute and thus make their marks let their guard down so that they were easier to hustle.

Letting another chuckle escape from his lips, Nick sipped his coffee as he scrolled down to the next message

It was from Badge, and its subject read: ‘It’s happening’. His smile dropping, Nick opened the message:

_FIRST RABBIT OFFICER ASSIGNED TO PRECINCT ONE._

In what is being hailed as a major success for Mayor Lionheart’s Mammal Inclusion Initiative, Judy Hopps has become the first rabbit to join the ranks of the Zootopia Police Department.

Nick’s eyes widened, though not in surprise. He knew the day would come. It meant that it was time to put his plan, to dissuade Hopps from becoming the trigger of a terrifying future, to work.

******

_It wasn’t long before I met the rabbit of the moment. I knew from the records stowed on my holodisk that Officer Judith Hopps spent her first days as a meter maid. Humble beginnings for somebody who would go on to place a spark right at the heart of Zootopia that would burn the whole thing to the ground for predators. I even had knowledge of her route, so I knew to set up my Jumbo Pop hustle on that route. A nice little place called Jumbeaux’s Ice Cream Parlour. Finnick had been talking about hitting that place anyway, but even he didn’t think we’d go with the Daddy Fox/Baby Fox-disguised-as-an-elephant hustle. I made sure Hopps saw me: she had just spent the morning ticketing parked cars that were seconds over the metre. She certainly was a zealot and was clearly trying to impress somebody. Perhaps some higher-up who had seen her for what she appeared: a cute, fuzzy-wuzzy little bunny with dreams well above her station._

_I knew her for what she would become, and I knew what had to be done. Even after ten years, I did not like the idea of killing her. Not at all._

_So, I decided to settle for killing her hopes and dreams._

******

Nick watched from a lamp-post as Hopps ran back to her car, apparently pleased with herself. She winced briefly and slowly turned to her own car – apparently, she had overstayed her own time.

‘Fancy ticketing yourself,’ Nick thought in amusement. As he thought that, he heard a truck starting down the nearby alcove and made to move into its path. The driver, a ram, hit the brakes hard as Nick darted in front of him. The horn blared.

“Watch where you’re going, Fox!” the ram shouted as he drove out of the alcove. Glaring at the driver, Nick gestured a ‘what’ to him. Stopping briefly so as to allow his quarry to catch sight of him, Nick glanced around. While he didn’t directly look at Hopps, he mentally added a ‘got you!’ when he noticed her crouching beside her vehicle, looking straight at him. An elephant stomped past, heading for the door to Jumbeaux’s café, and Nick followed them in. As the door closed, Nick spotted Finnick, in his baby elephant onesie, hiding between vacant tables near the door.

“Son, don’t run off!” Nick called out. Finnick gave Nick a death glare before stumbling towards him. The queue moved forward. Nick heard the door open behind him as he stepped up to the counter.

“What do you want?” the gruff voice of the elephant behind the counter demanded before Nick could even get a word in.

“Uh, hi,” Nick said. “I’d like a…”

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing skulking around during daylight hours…”

******

_Everybody knows the story from that point, but again: I knew the route Hopps would take later that day. So, after tricking her into paying for the Jumbo Pop I needed to melt down into pawpsicles, I suggested that we go to Sahara Square to melt them down there and then. Our usual process was to wait until there was nobody around, but this time I wanted an audience._

_An audience with a bunny cop in it._

******

_Sahara Square_

Finnick drove the van away from the house they had just melted the Jumbo Pop atop. He glanced briefly in his mirror, and then at Nick, who couldn’t help but smirk at the sight of Finnick, still in his elephant costume and with the pacifier in his mouth, giving him a glare. He took a brief look in the passenger-side mirror, noting that a small traffic enforcement vehicle was following them.

“Aw, it’s just a little bunny metre maid. What can she do? Give us a ticket?” Nick said smugly. “Take the tunnel to Tundratown, and park us up in Southern Borealis Lane.”

Finnick did as Nick instructed, taking the van through the tunnel connecting Sahara Square to Tundratown. Nick kept an eye on the wing mirror, noticing that their pursuer had not given up yet.

Southern Borealis Lane was situated on a hill, and there was a snow park situated there. It was the perfect place to visibly create pawpsicles.

“Okay, bud. Here will do,” Nick remarked. Finnick pulled the van up to the side of the road and Nick hopped out.

******

_We made the pawpsicles there, headed back to Savanna Central to sell them, and then to Little Rodentia to sell the sticks as lumber for the mice on an apartment block build. All with the cute little metre maid tailing us. Once I paid Finnick his share, Carrots, as I named her, confronted me, which was exactly what I was hoping for._

_It was so easy to plant the seed of doubt into her. Almost frighteningly so. Combined with how her own superiors were treating her, I was sure her resolve would break._

_After all, as I told Carrots: you can only be what you are. And she was a dumb bunny who, if left unchecked, would help spark an unrest that would damn all of us. Of course, I only had to tell her the first part._

_It should have ended there. But if there is such a thing as fate, then she is a very fickle mistress, because it led Carrots right back to me._

_Of course, I did what I could to dissuade her. To get her to back off from the idea of being a ‘real cop’._

_It seemed as if my attempts just made her dig her heels in further._

_It wasn’t until she saved my life that my attitude towards her began to change. By complete coincidence, when we found ourselves at the mercy of Mr. Big, whose limo we had unintentionally been caught investigating, it turned out that Carrots had saved Fru Fru’s life the very same morning. And Carrots would later save my life again during the chase with Renato Manchas, the jaguar driver who was the last to see Emmitt Otterton before he disappeared._

_It was really at that point that things started to change. When I saw the crestfallen look on Judy’s face when her Chief demanded her badge – 10 hours before her agreed 48._

_It was bad enough that Carrots was given 48 hours to solve a case that the entire ZPD hadn’t even broken ground on in two weeks. But here was proof of something I knew all-too-well, coming from the highest place: underestimation._

_So, I did what I never thought I would do._

_I stood up for her. I told that insufferable old bull exactly what I thought._

_After that, we went to Dawn Bellwether. As it turned out, Carrots had been friendly with her, which was good news for us as that connection allowed us to find the missing mammals… all of which were savage._

_And that’s where things started to fall apart._

_First, it turned out that the Mayor was the one kidnapping these mammals. If I were a raving prey supremacist, I’d be using that to say that predators can’t be trusted._

_And then, it happened._

_Not exactly as it did in the recording I have, but it happened. Officer Judy Hopps planted the seeds of suspicion in predators._

_I was… disappointed. Upset. Angry. I thought I was wrong about her._

_And the results spoke for themselves. The unrest I had heard about still occurred. Predators were targeted by prey who believed they could become mindless savages in a heartbeat. It became so bad that even a shifty and untrustworthy fox, somebody that society had deemed could sink no lower, was not even able to pull off the simplest hustles._

_My anger did burn out, eventually. But it was replaced by a new feeling._

_Failure._

_I had failed to change Judy Hopps’ role in all of this._

_I might not have had a solid ‘Plan B’, but I knew I had to try and change the future some other way. The first thing I tried to do was find out what was driving predators savage. I knew that there was some sort of toxin likely to be involved. Predators just don’t ‘go savage’, so there had to be something triggering it. I knew doctors who were studying the savage predators, and though they couldn’t tell me a lot, I did learn that blood test results had gone missing. Of course, when I told Badge, she knew that it meant somebody with access was interfering. She pointed me towards somebody she knew in the medical field: her niece, Madge._

_Madge couldn’t have been much help, given she was arrested alongside Lionheart, but her lawyer managed to convince the Judge and Jury of her trial that she was trying to help the savage predators, which meant she got house arrest instead of prison. When I visited her, she did suggest the possibility that predators going savage could be caused by some sort of virus or toxin, but that she still believed that it might be linked to the predators’ biology._

_If Madge was right, it meant that it was likely that predators were being targeted with something deliberately._

_Badge couldn’t find anything as far as camera footage from the areas the predators went savage. If the possibility of predators being targeted was correct, then whoever was doing it knew where the cameras were._

_It meant that whoever it was had friends in high places._

_Trying to sabotage the collars was the next idea I had, but they weren’t supposed to be introduced for a while. Badge hacked into the company that was to produce them and found out that they had begun designing the Tame Collars before the Missing Mammals Crisis. Badge put paid to them by placing a trojan on their systems. They’d have been lucky if they could have played tetris on their computers by the time the worm had finished._

_It was beginning to look like Domare Dominatio might already be in play. Despite not seeing the Subjugats that had been sent back, they could have been influencing things for some time. After all, they did come back to entrench their position in this era._

******

_It was three months before I saw Hopps again. She was rambling on about Night Howlers not being wolves but toxic plants. Dejected as I was, all I could do was walk away from her without even looking at her._

_Then she did something that I never expected from her: she offered a heartfelt apology for what she had done._

_It made me realise that things… they could just change._

_What happened afterward… made me realise that things were also not what they seemed either._

******

“We’re on the same team, Judy!”

Nick and Judy were hiding behind a pillar in the Natural History Museum. They had successfully managed to acquire the weapon being used to drive predators savage, and had made to take it to the ZPD, but they were stopped in their tracks by Dawn Bellwether.

The diminutive little sheep, as it turned out, was behind the entire crisis.

As Nick and Judy made their escape attempt, Judy had tripped over a protruding mammoth tusk, injuring her leg. It meant that they had a distinct disadvantage against Bellwether and her goons.

Nick examined the blueberries that dropped from the handkerchief he had just wrapped around Judy’s leg.

“I got an idea…” Nick said. Without further comment, he took the briefcase from Judy, opened it and pulled out the Night Howler gun. He found the catch to release the clip and pulled the one remaining pellet out of it, pocketing it.

“Nick? What are you doing?” Judy whispered. Nick didn’t answer straight away, but instead loaded the gun with three of the dropped blueberries. He carefully loaded the clip back into the gun and cocked it.

“Listen, Carrots…” Nick said. “If we get caught, she’s probably going to take the gun off us and use it. Probably on me. Imagine the headline: ‘hero cop killed by savage fox’. So, we’re going to hustle her…”

Nick took the carrot pen out of his pocket and handed it over to Judy.

“… into telling us her plan.”

“Nick, this doesn’t sound like a good plan…” Judy remarked.

“It’s all we got,” Nick said. “Just play along. If we make it, then we won’t even have to worry about it. If we don’t…”

Spotting a mummified jackalope, Nick moved and pushed it towards the edge of the pillar.

“Let’s go…” Nick said, taking Judy under the arm and helping her to her feet.

******

_The rest, as they say, is history. My plan to trick the big bad little sheep worked, and she was arrested and sentenced to a long time in prison. Carrots was reinstated as a cop, and tensions in the city started to go down. Heck, the ZPD even accepted me as an applicant. I had a slightly unfair advantage of course, but I became a cop, assigned to Precinct One alongside her._

_That should have been the end of it. The prey supremacist movement stopped in its tracks before it could become a great threat to the city. I thought I could rest easy, knowing the future was brighter, that my past would not come to be._

_Funny thing about the past is that it has a way of coming back to bite you in the tail, and sometimes in a big way…_


	6. A Shattered Illusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! We now move into new territory! Here’s where the real fun begins.
> 
> As usual, shoutouts to those who reviewed since I last updated:
> 
> FFN: GhostWolf88, Robert Escher, Omnitrix 12, Cimar of Turalis WildeHopps, KIITCH  
> AO3: SapperJoe85, 93PenguinImperator, x_uve, SoulUntraveled, WildeHoppsZPD  
> DeviantArt: Cimar-WildeHopps, Fail-Seeker, DragonTamer2000
> 
> Apologies if I have forgotten to give a shoutout to anyone from these sites. And, once again, special thanks go to the beta-readers who helped me out with this chapter: Ansem, Cimar of Turalis WildeHopps (who essentially edited the chapter as well)

A SHATTERED ILLUSION

_Good things don’t really last long, do they?_

_I thought that, having changed the fate of Zootopia and its inhabitants, I could put Nicholas Wilde, future soldier, to rest forever. I thought I could become Nick Wilde, first fox cop. Surely that meant the future had changed enough, didn’t it?_

_Yet there was always something in the back of my mind. Even once I became a cop, I kept in contact with Badge, who was all-too-eager to remind me that I wasn’t likely to be alone in this time._

_How could Domare Dominatio do anything now? Their lynch-pin, Bellwether’s plan, had fallen apart and the sheep safely behind bars. Her conspirators had been rounded up too. What more was there to do?_

_It wasn’t like I didn’t have my fair share of work to get on with._

_It all started about six weeks after my assignment to Precinct One as partner to Carrots…_

******

Another day in the Zootopia Police Department. Nick’s first six weeks had gone by smoothly enough. He sat in the oversized chair set aside for him and Judy at the front of the bullpen. Judy wasn’t there yet, so Nick was checking his messages.

One message was from Badge:

‘ _Don’t think this is all over. There could still be conspirators out there_.’

Nick suppressed a chuckle. He knew that there was always the chance that something could crop up. He wasn’t complacent. But the lynchpin of his future had been pulled out. It just simply couldn’t happen.

Two weeks ago, Badge had been careless. She had hacked into the ZPD’s servers to recover information on Bellwether in the hopes of seeing just how deep her conspiracy was rooted. Nick and Judy had been ordered to find her.

Badge took precautions, bouncing her IP address through a virtual private network. However, it didn’t take Nick long to figure out it was her: after all, the only information she appeared to access was with regards to sheep detainees and their connections.

He and Judy had gone to have a word with her, and Nick had told her to keep a low profile. For Badge, that just meant being more careful when she hacked into things, something that caused Nick no end of exasperation.

Nick was broken from his thoughts as his ears picked up the sound of light paw-steps approaching the chair. Turning around, he spotted Judy jogging towards him. A smug smile appeared on his lips.

“Why, Carrots, did I just see you coming in _after_ I got here?” Nick raised an eyebrow in amusement.

“There must be a sloth convention. There was a whole crowd of them on the underground,” Judy explained.

“Hmm, I’m not convinced,” Nick’s smirk widened.

“Oh?” Judy raised an eyebrow in challenge. “And what do you think happened, Slick Nick?”

“Well, I _invented_ the ‘sloth convention’ excuse, so you can’t use my own creation against me. I see a wire trailing from your belt pouch to your pocket that isn’t normally there. You usually keep your phone in _that_ pouch,” Nick pointed to a pouch attached to the right hip of Judy’s belt, “and that’s where the wire trails to. So, educated guess time here: your phone ran out of battery power overnight and that means you overslept and had to rush to get here before Chief Buffalo Butt did. Does that sound about right?”

“All right, Junior Detective…” Judy scoffed, though a light smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. Nick pumped his fist in response and shuffled over to allow Judy onto the chair just as he side door opened and Bogo stomped in. The other officers started grunting and slamming their fists against the desks.

“All right, settle down…” Bogo said as he took to the podium. “Enough!”

As soon as the chanting stopped, Bogo put on his glasses and looked at his papers.

“We have a few items on the docket today,” Bogo stated. “First off, there have been an increase in burglaries in the area as of late. Electronics have been stolen from several residences and premises, but we have no way of knowing who because every time it happened, security cameras in the area go down. We’re dealing with mammals who know their way into the security systems of the city. I want eyes peeled for anything suspicious. Now! Assignments!”

******

_We got patrol duty, which was pretty much the default. After all, we can’t expect to find city-wide corruption and top-level conspiracies every day of the week. And so, we went on our merry way, looking after the good mammals of Zootopia while also looking out for bad guys._

_And that usually meant having to entertain ourselves._

******

“I spy with my eager eye…” Nick said.

“We are _not_ playing ‘I Spy’ again,” Judy remarked.

“Oh, come on, Carrots,” Nick replied. “Gotta do _something_ to stay awake.”

“It’s not my fault that you prefer being a night owl,” Judy said. “Besides, you’d look funny falling asleep _while walking_.”

Nick and Judy were patrolling on foot around Savanna Central, having parked their cruiser a few blocks away. There had been nothing eventful for the last two hours, and that meant Judy had to put up with Nick and his boredom.

“Oh, look at that,” Nick glanced at his phone. “Lunch time.”

“Do you ever stop eating?” Judy suppressed a smirk.

“Hey, I’m a healthy young fox in the prime of my life, and this magnificent coat needs sustenance to keep its sheen,” Nick remarked as they passed a stand selling fruits and vegetables set up on the side of the street. He passed a few dollars over to the vendor and took a small punnet of blueberries, before popping the lid off and tossing a few into his mouth.

“So much for lunch,” Judy chortled.

“What? Gotta keep the stomach steady,” Nick defended. “Besides, I can’t pass these up.” Nick put another blueberry in his mouth.

“You and your blueberries,” Judy rolled her eyes.

“Ah, my one true love,” Nick sighed in delight, licking his fingers. “Sorry, Carrots, but I’m taken.”

Judy giggled and nudged Nick gently with her elbow.

******

_It had become a routine. Go on patrol, rib into Carrots, get lunch, maybe arrest a weasel selling bootlegs in the afternoon. Rinse, repeat, day in and day out._

_Compared to my original life, this was a lot more peaceful. Dare I say it, but I kind of enjoyed it. But like I said: good things don’t really last._

******

Judy and Nick were three blocks from the City Centre, approaching from the southeast, when a loud boom shook the cruiser as Judy steered it back to the station. It was loud enough that Judy instinctively let go of the steering wheel and reached for her ears, crying out in pain.

“Carrots!” Nick shouted, grabbing hold of the steering wheel and preventing the cruiser from veering into oncoming traffic. The cruiser came to a stop just as the smell of smoke reached Nick’s nostrils.

It was then they began hearing the screams. Nick glanced at Judy with worry as she let go of her ears and looked at him.

“What…” Judy breathed, “was that?”

“An explosion…” Nick replied. “Big one. Sounded like it came from the City Centre…”

Judy shook herself.

“We need to get going,” she said, taking control of the steering wheel. Nick took the radio and clicked it on.

“Officer Wilde to Dispatch. What’s going on?”

Despite only being three blocks away, the traffic had grinded to a halt. Nick could see smoke rising from behind the buildings in front of them. Judy flipped the siren on and swung the car down one of the side streets as mammals ran towards them.

“Cut through the tunnel under the train tracks,” Nick indicated as he sat back in his seat. “No response to our enquiry. You don’t think…”

Judy glanced at Nick, a worried look on her face.

The radio suddenly flared to life.

“ _All ZPD officers, we have a 10-80 at HQ. 10-19 to the City Centre immediately._ ”

Nick and Judy glanced at each other briefly, equal looks of worry on their face.

******

_10-80 was an explosion, and all officers were just ordered to City Centre._

_An explosion… Who would bomb Precinct One?_

_We were within sight of Precinct One within a couple of minutes even with the snarled traffic and fleeing mammals. Carrots pulled the cruiser to a halt at the Union Fountain and the pair of us got out, staring at the smoke and flames billowing from Precinct One._

_How had this happened?_

******

Nick and Judy remained silent, staring on as officers staggered away from the burning building.

“What… the heck?” Nick whispered.

“No way…” Judy said.

Nick started forward towards the burning Precinct.

“Nick! What are you doing?” Judy followed.

“Gotta see if anybody needs help,” Nick replied. Officers were streaming out from the front doors of the Precinct. Nick caught the shoulder of Officer Wolfard.

“Hey, where’s the Chief?” Judy asked.

“Still…” Wolfard said, before coughing, “inside.”

Nick and Judy glanced at the entrance just as the hulking form of Chief Bogo burst through the door, carrying Clawhauser.

“Back! Back!” Bogo shouted, before coughing. The officers who had gathered around to see to Bogo fell back, away from the burning building. Glancing around, Nick and Judy noticed that a crowd was gathering to observe the carnage caused by the explosion.

“Well, I guess the initial shock of an explosion wore off…” Nick remarked.

It took Judy a moment of staring before she shook herself out of it and turned to Nick.

“Crowd control…” Judy said. “We need to get the crowds under control.”

Nick nodded.

“And no ‘look into the centre of this pen’ jokes,” Judy added.

“You’re no fun,” Nick pouted.

“Not the time, Slick,” Judy chastised.

“Sometimes, I use humour to mask… you’re right. Not the time,” Nick shook his head.

“Well, let’s get to it, then,” Nick said as he paced towards the crowd. “Excuse me! Everybody! We need you all to take a step back! Yes, that includes _you_ , Larry Longneck with the camera.” Nick stared up at a giraffe trying to take photos of the chaos.

“Nick, you can’t say that!” Judy said.

“Actually, that’s his name,” Nick clarified.

Other officers who had arrived to answer the 10-19 were placing themselves between the crowd and the burning building. Sirens wailed as fire trucks snaked their way through the crowds into the Square.

“Get back, please!” Judy called out to the mammals standing in the crowd.

“Back! Now!” came the booming voice of Officer Rhinowitz as he approached. Nick and Judy turned to face the rhino.

“Hey, Horns,” Nick waved.

“Can it, Wilde,” Rhinowitz snorted.

“Where’s the Chief?” Judy asked.

“He got out after clearing as much of the building as he could,” Rhinowitz explained.

“What happened?” Judy enquired.

“Explosion came from the basement,” Rhinowitz said. “As soon as that happened, we got out.”

“Anybody… caught in it?”

Rhinowitz paused.

“We’ll know when the fire crews put out the fire,” Rhinowitz responded gruffly. “Now get back to crowd control.”

******

_Had I not turned around at that moment, I might not have noticed what I did._

_There was a rabbit that was behind our lines, retreating towards the crowd not far from us. Now, that might not have been unusual, because there was always bound to be somebody who have broken through a police cordon. I might have written it off._

_But this bunny was wearing what was unmistakably supposed to be a meter maid uniform. I knew, for certain, that Carrots was still the only bunny in the ZPD. Oh, there were plenty of rabbits that tried to become ZPD officers. So far, they had all failed. They lacked the true grit that Carrots had – her determination that had been there from the very start. It was as if they saw it as some sort of prestige._

_Look at me, Mr. Digresser. What I was saying was that there were currently no other rabbit officers in the ZPD._

_And that immediately set my Fox Sense off. Some bunny in a make-believe meter maid uniform trying to melt into the crowd in the aftermath of an explosion at the very heart of the ZPD?_

_So, I started to pursue._

******

As Nick headed towards the bunny disappearing into the crowd, Judy took notice.

“One moment…” Judy said to Rhinowitz as she went after Nick. “Nick, what’s up?” Nick didn’t respond immediately, carrying on towards the other bunny.

“Nick!” Judy repeated.

“Carrots, are there any other bunnies in the ZPD?” Nick asked.

“Not that I know of,” Judy replied.

“Then why is there a bunny in a ZPD meter maid uniform, looking like she doesn’t want to be seen, fleeing the scene of an explosion?” Nick pointed at the retreating bunny.

Judy looked at Nick. “Possible suspect?”

“I’m shocked miss ‘I got dibs woot-woot’ has to ask,” Nick smirked slightly.

“Har, har,” came Judy’s response, along with a soft thump to Nick’s arm. “We’d better investigate.”

The pair pushed through the crowd, towards the direction the bunny had gone. When they got through to the other side, they looked around for the rabbit. Nick spotted it as it was retreating towards South Station Avenue.

“Stop!” Nick shouted, “In the name of the law!”

The retreating rabbit took a glance backwards, and then broke into a sprint.

“Hey!” Nick shouted as he ran after her. The rabbit ran as fast as Judy. Speaking of Judy, Nick let his eyes dart to the side once and found her nowhere to be found.

“Gonna guess she’s going to try and cut this one off…” Nick huffed. He dropped to all fours and dashed as fast as his paws could carry him.

“Unorthodox…” Nick muttered to himself as the distance closed. The rabbit turned towards an alleyway, taking that moment to take off her hat and throw it straight at Nick. Nick dodged the makeshift projectile and smirked – he knew this alley was a dead-end. Clearly the rabbit did not.

“Okay, end of the line,” Nick remarked as he got back up onto his hind paws. “Paws where I can see ‘em.”

The rabbit turned around, and for a moment, Nick lost his voice.

******

_There was no mistaking what I was looking at. Those eyes, piercing lavender. The grey fur. The way the nose twitched. The ears tipped with black._

_And, yes: the little implant protruding from the back of her head._

_This was a Subjugat, and not just any Subjugat._

_It was one based on Carrots._

_Just like the one I saw from the future I came from._

_I started to contemplate whether that meant that the future had been successfully changed, but my musings were cut short when the Subjugat launched herself at me._

******

“Hey!” Nick dodged a kick from the Judy Hoppsalike. She tried striking at Nick with a balled fist, but Nick managed to catch it and flip the impostor over. The impostor landed with a thud but quickly flipped itself back onto its feet.

Nick grabbed at the baton on his belt and opened it with a flick of his wrist. The Subjugat jumped at Nick and he aimed a swing, but missed, the Subjugat kicking the baton from his paw. Using Nick’s shoulder as a springboard, the Subjugat launched itself at the wall, twisting in mid-air so its feet landed on the masonry before springing straight at Nick, aiming a kick at his head. Nick dodged out of the way but the Subjugat’s foot connected with his shoulder, sending him tumbling into the wall.

“Hey! Freeze!” came a voice from the other end of the alley. Nick noticed Judy had gotten the cruiser and had parked it to block the alley off. The Subjugat froze in place, giving Nick the opportunity he needed to draw his taser and fire.

The Subjugat dropped to the ground, twitching and letting out a high-pitched shriek. Sparks flew from the implant on the side of her head. Nick released the trigger, watching the Subjugat writhing before passing out.

“What the heck, Nick?!” Judy shouted. “A taser? Really? You know how sensitive a rabbit’s heart is?”

“Lowest setting,” Nick replied. “And I didn’t much like the idea of a lookalike kicking my brains in. She could give _you_ a run for your money.”

“Was she… trying to impersonate me?” Judy asked as she approached, shocked at the familiar looking bunny as she looked her over.

“Maybe,” Nick replied, “but nobody would have fallen for it.”

“Well, she was fleeing the scene of the crime,” Judy pointed out. “Was she trying to frame me for it?”

“Dumb idea, given that everybody knew where you were all morning,” Nick said.

Judy kneeled next to the downed mammal, before brushing a paw across the back of their head. “What’s that on her head?” Judy pointed to the implant.

“Dunno,” Nick lied deftly, “maybe some sort of fancy hearing aid.”

There was a pregnant pause before Judy spoke up. “I… need to report this,” Judy reached for her radio.

“Officer Hopps to…” Judy refrained from saying ‘Dispatch’, recalling the burning Precinct One building, “any available officer. We have one suspect, a female rabbit impersonating a police officer who fled the scene of the 10-80. Officer Wilde has subdued her. We need to know where to take her.”

“I’ll… put her in the cruiser,” Nick suggested, picking the Subjugat up carefully. “You wanna have a look around the scene, see if you can pick anything up? Maybe she had a weapon that she dropped.”

******

_Once I took the Subjugat to the cruiser, I checked to see if Carrots was looking. She was busy checking behind a nearby dumpster, so I took the opportunity to lock the cruiser doors. The moment I started the engine, Carrots came running, but I had already gone._

_Sorry, Carrots… but the less you get involved in this, the better._

_Fate, it seems, had other plans._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, that took ages to get out! Apologies for the wait! Nick’s finding out that things are not as fixed as he thought they were! What happens next? You’ll have to come back next time, same Futures Past time, same Futures Past place!
> 
> Please don’t forget to review. Let me know what you think!


	7. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! Again! It’s been hectic as of late, especially since my university course decided to give us a much more complex project than what is usual for first-years on our course.
> 
> As usual, shoutouts to those who reviewed since I last updated:  
> FFN: J Shute Norway, GhostWolf88, AStoryTellerBook, Robert Escher  
> AO3: x_uve, SaberGatomon, FattaEld, SapperJoe85  
> DeviantArt: Cimar-WildeHopps, Yoshifan30  
> Apologies if I have forgotten to give a shoutout to anyone from these sites. And, once again, special thanks go to the beta-readers who helped me out with this chapter: J Shute Norway, Ansem, TheNightManager.

REVELATIONS

_I will confess this now: abducting the Subjugat and driving her in a police cruiser to somebody who knew of my predicament… yeah, not the smartest idea in the world. I was desperate to stop Carrots from learning the truth, but had rational minds prevailed, maybe I could have thought of another way._

_But I did what I did, which meant seeing it through. There was only one place I could take a Subjugat: Badge’s place. I just knew she’d be thrilled that I had brought her more proof of the future._

_Imagine my surprise when, after I set the Subjugat down on a table in Badge’s office and expecting a warm welcome, I got a smack round the back of the head instead._

******

“Are you an _idiot_?!” Badge shouted.

“I thought you’d want to see this!” Nick protested.

“So, you abduct this bunny, steal your police cruiser, _which can be tracked_ ,” Badge emphasised, “and bring them both right to my door!”

“I… I wasn’t thinking straight…” Nick rubbed the back of his head.

“That’s obvious!” Badge yelled. “You just got me off being charged with hacking into the ZPD’s computers! What do you think’s gonna happen when the ZPD barges in here after _one of their own_ abducts a bunny and drags her here?!”

“It was stupid of me, I know…” Nick began.

“You’re telling me?” Badge raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. She let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head. “Right, so what did you bring her here for?”

“Take a good look at her,” Nick said, indicating to the Subjugat. Badge walked over to the table and looked it up and down.

“Looks a lot like that rabbit officer of yours,” Badge said.

“This is one of them,” Nick said. “A Subjugat from my time.”

Nick opened one of his belt pouches and pulled the holodisk out. Activating it, he passed it to Badge as a hologram of a JH-class Subjugat faded in. She examined it and then glanced at the unconscious Subjugat.

“So, these are the ‘slave soldiers’ you mentioned,” Badge remarked. “Odd that they used prey, given they’re all about subjugating predators…”

“They used whatever they thought would work,” Nick replied. “Mostly predators. But they started using smaller prey.”

“But why?” Badge raised an eyebrow.

“Easy to underestimate a cute little bunny, isn’t it?” Nick asked.

 ******

_Oh, yes… it was all-too-easy to underestimate a cute little bunny, indeed, and it was clearly a lesson I had failed to completely absorb, as I was about to find out. As Badge got to work figuring out what to do with the Subjugat, I waited patiently for what I assumed was my fate. I knew I was done for. Sooner or later, the ZPD would find me, and I would be in cuffs. Lead out to jeers that ‘foxes can’t be trusted’._

_All I could do was wait, and so to try and draw attention away from what Badge was doing, I chose to wait outside._

_Well, Badge was right: the cruiser could be tracked. Of course, the inevitable happened… but not exactly in the form I was expecting it to._

_Because Carrots was storming up the street, heading straight for me. Her face was like thunder, and I’m pretty sure if she could, she would be making earthquakes with her footsteps as she approached me._

******

“You have exactly sixty seconds to explain to me what in the name of Fortuna is going on,” Judy growled lowly, stopping in front of him.

“You shouldn’t have followed me, Carrots…” Nick said.

“That’s not an explanation. Fifty seconds,” Judy replied, her foot beginning to thump rapidly against the ground.

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Nick protested.

“That’s forty seconds left,” Judy noted, her foot tapping faster.

“Look, okay, all right…” Nick raised both paws. “I’ll tell you what’s going on. But I want your word that you will not tell anybody.”

“Why should I do that?” Judy demanded. “You’ve just committed a number of felonies. I have a duty, and you’re…”

“Putting a lot of trust into you not telling a soul about what I’m about to show you,” Nick said. “Look, Carrots, I trust you. I really do.”

“Yeah, right. The feeling’s not mutual right now, Slick.”

“I get that… and what I did was stupid. I should have thought it through better, but I saw that thing and panicked.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Judy remarked.

******

_She was right, in a way. This wasn’t going to make sense to her. But if I knew Carrots well enough by this point, it was that I knew there was no way I could shake her off until she got what she wanted. She proved that the first time we met._

_What happened next was not something I decided on lightly, but I knew that, even if the chance was so slim a mouse couldn’t slip through it, she would find out about what was going on one way or another._

_It was best in the long run for it to come from the horse’s mouth, if you’ll forgive the phrase._

******

Nick ran his paws down his face, contemplating. After what seemed like forever, he moved his paws and stared at Judy.

“Okay… Follow me,” he remarked, indicating Judy to follow.

“Where are we going?” Judy demanded.

“Look, I didn’t want you involved, Carrots,” Nick said. “I really didn’t. This is something you shouldn’t be mixed up in. The less you know the better.”

“It’s too late for that, Wilde. I’m involved. Now, tell me: what’s going on?”

Nick put a paw to his head as he reached the door to Badge’s building.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you…” Nick remarked as he reached for the door handle. “And please… don’t hate me for what I’m about to show you.”

Judy’s ears shot up and her nose started twitching.

“Oh, no… it’s nothing macabre, I promise you,” Nick insisted, “but… just the same, you’ll probably wind up going into a mental shock anyway…”

******

_Once the door opened, that was it: there was no going back. A short trip down the corridor seemed like a mile-long slog with Carrots at my back, as if to ensure that I didn’t pull some sort of fast one. At that moment, I wished deeply that Badge’s door would not open, that I would be able to evade telling the truth to Judy in the end._

_No such luck. The door opened. And with the door opened, that was it._

******

 

Nick and Judy entered Badge’s office, where Badge was looking over the Subjugat. She was wearing goggles as she looked up.

“What the heck, Nick?!” she shouted.

“It’s just her,” Nick replied.

“I came alone,” Judy confirmed. “Now, tell me: what the sweet cheese and crackers is going on?”

She glanced at the Subjugat Badge was looking over. Badge had opened up the device attached to the Subjugat’s head. She put the tool she was holding down, picked up Nick’s holodisk and threw it to him.

“It’s your story,” Badge shrugged.

“First, it helps if you take a good look at… this…” Nick indicated to the unconscious Subjugat.

“So she looks like me. So what?” Judy said. “It’s not unheard of for some mammals to try and impersonate a police officer.”

Nick exhaled slowly.

“Yes, but there’s a reason for that,” Nick said.

“Unless you got a DNA tester in that thing, you ain’t gonna convince her easily,” Badge piped up.

“Are you implying that, somehow, she _is_ me?” Judy raised an eyebrow. “Because I’d be tempted not to call for a squad car so much as the psychiatrist.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Nick replied. He stepped forward towards Judy, holding out his holodisk. Without further comment, he pressed the button to activate it and placed it on the nearby table.

The hologram flared to life and an image of Zootopia, one hundred years into the future, appeared. Amongst the images projected by the hologram, short texts began appearing.

‘ _Predator Savagery ‘Due To Biology’, Says New ZPD Recruit._ ’

‘ _Unrest Grows As Savage Incidents Increase._ ’

‘ _First Bunny Cop Resigns._ ’

‘ _First Fatality In Savage Crisis._ ’

‘ _Mayor Bellwether Declares State Of Emergency._ ’

‘ _Mandatory Collars Act Passed._ ’

‘ _Bellwether succeeded by Domare Dominatio’s William Merino._ ’

‘ _State Of Emergency Extended, New Happytown Announced._ ’

‘ _Predator Relocation Act Passed._ ’

‘ _City Council Reorganized Into Ruling Council ‘For Safe And Secure Zootopia’._ ’

‘ _Discontent Among Predators Grows._ ’

‘ _Announcement Of New Enforcer Programme To Replace ZPD._ ’

‘ _Predators Attempt Invasion Of City._ ’

‘ _Ruling Council Declares War On New Happytown._ ’

“What…?” Judy stammered.

“This is where I come from, Carrots,” Nick said hollowly. “This is my past… and this was supposed to be your future.”

******

_To Carrots’ credit, she didn’t do anything cliché like pass out, though I’m sure if her eyes could have gotten any bigger they would have._

_I could have narrated as she stared wordlessly at what she was being shown, but it would have been pointless. I’m sure the words she was reading got across my point well enough._

_Of course, it meant questions of a slightly different nature were about to come my way._

******

“What… are you?” Judy stared at Nick.

“I’m a soldier. Well, I was…” Nick replied.

“And _her_?” Judy indicated to the unconscious Subjugat.

“The proper term is ‘Enforcer’, but we call them ‘Subjugats’,” Nick explained.

“And why does she look like me?” Judy continued.

“Because she was made from you,” Nick replied. “Subjugats are will-less clones.”

Judy stared at Nick, her ears drooped, her face in an expression of utter shock. Then, without a word, she turned around and walked straight out of the room.

“Carrots, wait!” Nick started forward.

“Nick…” Badge said, causing him to stop.

“I can’t just…” Nick began.

“She’s just found out that the persona you built is not entirely truthful,” Badge pointed out.

“I won’t leave it like this,” Nick protested.

“Ah… you, uh… _care_ for her, right?” Badge raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t give me the whole ‘fox and bunny won’t work’ speech. Already had that off Finnick.”

“Oh, I won’t. But a cop who knew nothing of the future, and a time traveller who lied to her? Too late to try and mend that bridge, I think.”

“You know what Carrots would say?” Nick retorted. “She would say that we have to try.”

With that, Nick turned around and went after Judy.

******

_I regret that my first thought wasn’t whether Carrots was okay with everything, but whether she would say something that would make things difficult. It was an awful, self-centred thought… almost like it was the Nick Wilde that existed between my arrival in this time and now._

******

As it happened, Nick did not have to go too far to find her. She was at the car, her paws against the bonnet. She appeared to be breathing deeply, as if to steady herself. One of her ears perked up as Nick approached, though Judy did not turn around.

“Was anything you told me ever true?” Judy said, without looking at Nick.

“Some of it,” Nick replied. “But would you have believed me had I told you?”

Judy sighed.

“No.”

“Exactly! I wouldn’t have believed me! It’s a really out-there story!”

“Why? Why come back at all?”

“You saw what the future… no, my past… ugh… look, I had to try and stop you from becoming a piece of that history.”

“Sure, pin this all on me,” Judy snorted.

“I’m not,” Nick held his paws up, “but you have to understand… what you said in that press conference was something that _they_ used to help sow the discord they needed to gain power. I know you didn’t _mean_ for it to happen, but it did. At least, it did for me, in my future.”

“And you couldn’t tell me all of this beforehand? Before I got up on that podium?”

“How exactly does that conversation start, anyway? ‘Hi, I’m Nick Wilde. I’m here to stop you from making a mistake that will ruin the future.’”

“You had that thing with you! You could have convinced me!”

“In front of the whole of the ZPD and the Zootopia press?”

“And what about Bellwether?”

“What about her? I didn’t know she was involved until the Museum! I’m not psychic.”

Judy opened her mouth as if to add something else, but changed her mind before a word came out of her.

“Look, I know this is a lot to take in…” Nick began.

“Go.”

“Huh?”

One glance at Judy’s face was all Nick needed. It was clear to Nick that she was in a deep conflict with herself over what she had learned.

“Go. Leave me alone. I need to… think… about what to do with all of this.”

“Okay… I’ll just…”

Nick stepped backwards, towards Badge’s place, his eyes kept on Judy. He took the keys to the cruiser from his belt and slid them across the ground towards her. They collided with her foot, and she picked them up. She stared at them for one moment, as if not knowing what to do with them. Then she opened the cruiser, climbed in to the driver’s seat, started it and drove off.

Nick watched, a forlorn expression on his face.


	8. The Trouble With Doubles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, all! Here’s a brand-new chapter of Futures Past!
> 
> Special thanks go to the reviewers of the previous chapter:  
> FFN: GhostWolf88, KIITCH, Cimar of Turalis WildeHopps  
> AO3: SapperJoe85, x_uve, Jack_Kellar, DancouMaryuu  
> DeviantArt: Cimar-WildeHopps, Owningsuperset7, Yoshifan30
> 
> And special thanks to the beta readers: J Shute Norway, Ansem, BrutusDeagon
> 
> With that out of the way, let’s get on with the show!

THE TROUBLE WITH DOUBLES

It was late at night. Nick was laying in his bed, the holodisk set on the bedside cabinet. His gaze was fixed on the door, as if expecting something to happen.

Since coming home, Nick had moved his pauldron and weapon from his closet to underneath his bed. It was far easier to reach them there, and he couldn’t shake the feeling he might need them.

His phone, which also sat on the bedside cabinet, vibrated. Nick picked it up and unlocked it to a message from Judy. Frowning at his phone, he opened it.

‘ _ You’re welcome. _ ’

Nick raised an eyebrow in confusion. He had no idea what Judy meant by that. He wanted to text back, but stopped himself before he could act on the thought. Thinking it was probably still a bit too soon to try and talk to her, Nick set the phone back down and laid back in his bed.

But he did not fall asleep that night. He was kept awake with the expectation of a TUSK squad bursting down his door.

Nick stayed that way until dawn broke. As he got out of bed and stretched himself, a knock came at the door. Sighing to himself, he wondered if it was his earlier assumption of a TUSK squad. Nick discounted the notion. Surely, they’d have just barged in. Perhaps it was a lone officer trying to get him to come quietly.

He slipped out of bed and headed for the door. Peering through the peephole, he was surprised to see who it was standing on the other side of his door.

It was Judy.

Nick opened the door a crack.

“Are you going to let me in?” Judy asked.

Nick stared at Judy for a moment. A sigh escaped Nick’s lips as he opened the door further, allowing her in. Shutting the door behind him, his gaze stayed on Judy as she turned to face him.

“Uh… welcome to Casa Del Wilde?” Nick said.

“Shouldn’t you be getting dressed?” Judy asked, ignoring Nick’s remark.

“What’s the point if I’m going to be marched out in cuffs?” Nick retorted.

“That’s not going to happen,” Judy replied.

Nick blinked, his mouth slightly agape.

“But you reported that I stole the cruiser and abducted a suspect… didn’t you?”

Judy stepped forward.

“Listen closely, Nick, because you’re going to be asked later,” Judy said. “You placed the suspect in the cruiser, and then got in to radio back to headquarters that you had arrested her. She got the jump on you and knocked you out, taking the cruiser before dumping it. I had the cruiser tracked and sent you home to nurse your bruised ego.”

“… Why are you covering up for me?” Nick asked.

“What do you think would happen if I told Bogo everything? I’d be marched straight into a holding cell in a very snug straightjacket,” Judy answered. “Besides, I want to get to the bottom of all of this. I’m still… getting used to what I know about you.”

There was a brief pause between the two.

“So, uh… are we good?” Nick ventured.

“We’re a long way off that point, Slick,” Judy replied. “But… we’re not  _ through _ either. I… don’t know how to feel about all of this. I just know that I need answers, and you’re the only one who can help me find them. Now, get dressed. Bogo wants us in Precinct Two.”

******

_ So, what did this mean for jolly old Saint Nicholas The Time Traveller? It meant that Carrots trusted me enough that what she had learned did not completely wreck our friendship, even if she was going to be a bit more wary of me now. _

_ As quickly as possible, I changed into my uniform and met with Carrots in the cruiser. We rode in silence to Precinct Two, which was located in the Rainforest District. Precinct Two’s building was a little less nice than our building had been before the bombing. _

_ Under normal circumstances, I might have made some clever remark. ‘Talk about your fixer-upper’, or something like that. _

_ As Carrots pulled the cruiser up to Precinct Two, she glanced at me, as if deciding whether to start asking questions. Can’t say I blame her. For the first time ever, she might actually have more of those than she does siblings. _

******

On their way into the makeshift briefing room in Precinct Two, Judy kept chancing glances at Nick, as if trying to understand him. Nick did his best to let it go – Judy had more than enough reason to try and puzzle him out.

Nevertheless, Judy did not actually ask Nick anything as they entered the room and found themselves a seat. Unlike Precinct One, Precinct Two had smaller seats, which meant that Nick and Judy did not have to share a seat.

Not that Nick minded sharing a seat with Judy. He almost felt lonely sitting by himself.

The door opened and Chief Bogo stomped into the room. There was none of the usual chanting and rabble-rousing that accompanied his entrance, which showed just how sombre and serious the situation was.

“Thank you for making it,” Bogo started. “Yesterday was a bad day for us all. Luckily, all of our officers are accounted for and there were no serious injuries in the explosion. First item on the docket today…”

“Sir, were there other casualties?” came the voice of Officer Wolfard.

“There was a body pulled from the centre of the explosion, yes,” Bogo confirmed. “CSIs are currently trying to identify who the mammal in question is. All they can say so far is that it was a member of the panthera family of mammals, but they haven’t yet identified which one.”

“What about the accomplice?” came the voice of Officer Jackson, “The one that got away? Wasn’t it a rabbit dressed like one of us?”

“We haven’t yet tracked down the accomplice, but it is only a matter of time,” Bogo answered, “Any more questions? No? Can I get on with the bloody docket?”

Bogo glared around the room.

“Good,” he remarked. “The bad news is that without either suspect, we have no leads to find out what this is. Every Precinct in the city could be a target, or it could be a vendetta against Precinct One specifically. Until we figure it out, assume that it may happen again. I want every officer on patrol. Any officer already on assignment will be asked to keep an ear to the ground for any activity that relates to this. Alright, you all have your assignments. Hopps, Wilde… I want a word before you head out. Dismissed!”

The other officers filed out of the briefing room, leaving Nick and Judy behind as Bogo approached them. He took a chair and sat facing them.

“Wilde, I have Officer Hopps’ statement about the events of yesterday. Care to add anything?”

******

_ It’s a good thing I’m well-practiced in making stories up on the spot, but I definitely used the crutch Carrots threw me when she picked me up. _

_ My story went like this: I placed the suspect in the cruiser, but as I attempted to secure her, she caught me off-guard, managed to pull a tranquiliser from my belt and stabbed me with it. I was out cold, so I didn’t remember much apart from waking up in the cruiser, which had been abandoned somewhere in Happytown. Officer Hopps found me having just awoken and sent me home to let the tranquiliser wear off. Of course, I said nothing of a ‘bruised ego’. _

_ Bogo seemed satisfied with the report but reprimanded me for being careless with a suspect and put me on review. Carrots shot me a look that said that I had just gotten off lightly. _

_ As we left, my phone rang. _

******

“Badge, this isn’t a good time…” Nick began.

“ _ I just had to dart our little jackrabbit, _ ” Badge said, “ _ so you’d better get over here and do whatever it is you gotta do to pacify her! _ ”

Nick glanced at Judy briefly as she turned her gaze on him. He clearly had her full attention.

“I’m not sure what you expect me to do,” Nick replied.

“ _ Well, you’re here to sort this stuff out, so sort it out! _ ” Badge retorted before hanging up. Nick stared at his phone, allowing a sigh to escape his lips.

“What’s wrong?” Judy asked.

“Seems our friend chose to wake up,” Nick answered. “Now Badge wants me to ‘pacify’ it.”

“You mean kill her, right?” Judy’s expression soured.

“That wasn’t what I was thinking of, no,” Nick shook his head. “We need it to figure out what’s going on. So, it has to stay alive.”

“Why do you keep calling her ‘it’?” Judy asked.

“It’s like a photocopy,” Nick explained. “It has no will of its own. It’s just a cheap imitation meant to do what it’s told.”

“And what happens when… she outlives her usefulness?” Judy raised an eyebrow.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but the longer it’s around, the more likelihood of its presence contaminating the future,” Nick responded.

“What about  _ your _ presence?” Judy pointed out.

“You  _ know _ why I’m here,” Nick pointed out. “Nobody wins if that future happens.”

“Is that what this is? It’s about who wins and loses?” Judy asked.

“You know that’s not what it is, Carrots,” Nick huffed. “I’m here for the same reason you’re here.”

Judy looked at Nick curiously.

“… To make the world a better place,” she replied. Nick nodded.

“We should at least go round and see what it is Badge wants us to do,” Nick suggested. “We can say that we’re following up on what happened yesterday. After all,  _ somebody _ must have seen where that rabbit went.”

“Sounds like an excuse, but it’s better than sitting around in a cruiser looking for something else. Let’s go, Slick,” Judy shrugged.

******

The ride did not take long. Once they arrived, Judy parked the cruiser a short distance from The Set, and she and Nick got out and went to the side door. Nick opened the door and Judy followed.

There was a loud commotion coming from the room where Badge had been keeping the Subjugat. Nick and Judy nodded at each other, drawing their tranq guns as they moved down the corridor. When the reached the door, Nick threw it open.

What was inside was a mess. Computer equipment was strewn everywhere, tables were upturned, and shelves were collapsed.

And in the middle of it all, the Subjugat was trying its best to attack Badge.

“Get off, you thrall!” Badge shouted, clutching a chair as a makeshift shield to stop the Subjugat from getting to her.

Nick rushed over and grabbed the rabbit by the wrist, but it continued thrashing. When it caught sight of its captor, it spun around and kicked Nick in the chest to escape his grip. The hit caused Nick to drop his tranq gun, and the Subjugat went for it.

“Hold it!” Judy called, aiming her weapon at the Subjugat. It froze in place just as its paw scraped the tranq gun. Nick got up and took the tranq gun out from underneath the Subjugat, aiming it at the neck of the thrall. He was about to pull the trigger when he realised something.

The Subjugat had completely stopped moving, and was looking at Judy, as if expecting something.

“No way…” Nick remarked, his eyes flitting between Judy and her doppelganger.

“Got here in time,” Badge got up from her position, tossing the chair aside. “Look at my equipment! It wrecked it!” Badge stopped when she saw the scene before her: Judy and Nick pointing their tranq guns at the Subjugat, and the Subjugat not moving a muscle.

“Paws up,” Judy instructed. The Subjugat complied, much to Nick’s surprise.

“No… flipping… way…” Nick repeated.

“What’s wrong?” Badge asked.

“Remember what I told you about these things?” Nick said, keeping his tranq gun trained on the Subjugat. Badge thought for a moment, before a wide-eyed look appeared on her face.

“Oh…” Badge said.

“Would either of you two like to fill me in?” Judy asked.

Nick turned to Judy.

“Carrots, do me a favour,” Nick said. “Give it a request.”

“Huh?” Judy’s eyebrow rose in confusion.

“Anything you can think of,” Nick explained.

“Um… okay…” Judy said, looking at the Subjugat again. “Tell me your name.”

The Subjugat straightened up. Judy’s tranq gun rose, but the Subjugat made no move to attack.

“JH-304,” the Subjugat replied.

“And… who sent you on your mission?”

“You did.”

******

_ Well, that was definitely a surprise. This Subjugat takes orders from Carrots? Carrots would be long-dead by the time this Subjugat was created, so that can mean only one thing. _

_ Back to the history books. I’ve explained about the origins of the Subjugats, but before the Subjugats came into being, Domare Dominatio were experimenting with cloning unaltered subjects. Word was that these clones were too unpredictable and Domare Dominatio wound up ‘disposing’ of them. _

_ But what if they hadn’t disposed of them all? What if some of them, the ones that could be made loyal, were kept around as Commissars? And what if one of those Commissars was a clone of one rabbit police officer by the name of Judy Hopps? _

_ What other explanation could there be? _

_ I recounted this to Carrots… and I’m pretty sure it went over her head a little, but I thought she got the general gist of what I was telling her: that somewhere out there, there might be somebunny else that looked exactly like her, but might not be a thrall like the Subjugat here is. _

******

“I might make one little suggestion,” Badge interjected, drawing Nick and Judy’s attention. “You have her under your… command, so why not get her to reveal the place she came from?”

Judy looked over the Subjugat.

“Do you want to tell me where you came from?” Judy asked.

“What I want is irrelevant,” JH-304 replied, “I have to comply with orders from my commanding officer.”

“Where are you staying?” Judy asked.

“When we embarked on this mission, you changed our hideout location and would not tell me until the mission concluded,” JH-304 answered. “I was to receive the coordinates when I successfully outran the ZPD, but when the fox attacked me…”

“Hello, name’s Nick, I’m right here,” Nick waved. JH-304 ignored him.

“I can only assume that I was attacked with a Taser, and it appears to have disabled my implant’s communications,” JH-304 explained. “I am awaiting your instructions to go to the next destination.”

“Talks like a computer, don’t it?” Badge said.

“It doesn’t know where its puppet master is,” Nick said.

“This…” Judy stared hard at her doppelganger, “isn’t right.”

“Carrots…” Nick began.

“No, Nick,” Judy shook her head, “you can’t tell me any of this is right! She looks exactly like me yet she talks like she has a computer for a brain!”

“It  _ does _ have a computer for a brain!” Nick replied tersely.

“But if she sees me as her commanding officer…” Judy began.

“Carrots, whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” Nick warned. “This isn’t going to go however you might think.”

“So, you have to do whatever I say, yes?” Judy said.

“Carrots, no!” Nick repeated.

“I do,” JH-304 replied.

“Fine,” Judy replied. “Stop following orders! Choose your own life! Live free! Choose what to do from now on! You’re not a slave to anyone anymore!”

Nick dragged his paw down his face in exasperation.

“Carrots, that was a waste of an order,” he sighed. “It doesn’t know what free will is.”

JH-304 showed what appeared to be visible confusion at the order.

“Tell me, what do you want?” Judy asked. Nick fully expected the same answer as before.

“I do not know,” JH-304 replied. “I have never been given the choice before.”

“But you  _ can _ make choices?” Judy asked.

“Our brains are still organic, but our implants are meant to override free will,” JH-304 explained.

“Great. Is it going to become a fully-functioning member of society?” Nick rolled his eyes.

“I would appreciate it if you refrained from calling me an ‘it’,” JH-304 turned its head towards Nick.

“Oh, great! Now it has feelings too!” Nick threw his hands up.

“Nick…” Judy began.

“Nobody has ever seen a freed Subjugat before! It just doesn’t happen!”

Judy was about to retort when her radio went off.

“ _ Any units in the region of the Gnu York Electronics Store? We have reports of a 459, _ ” came the voice of the Precinct Two dispatcher. Nick and Judy looked at each other.

“Dispatch, this is Officer Hopps,” Judy responded. “Me and Officer Wilde will respond.”

“ _ 10-4 _ ,” the dispatcher answered.

Nick looked at JH-304.

“Go. I’ll take care of this one,” Badge said. Nick looked at her. When Judy shot a sharp look at Badge, she added: “I won’t harm it, so long as it plays nicely.”

******

_ We returned to our cruiser and set out for our crime scene. _

_ It didn’t sit well with me to leave the Subjugat with Badge, given it had attacked her before, but what were we supposed to do? Take it with us to a crime scene? _

_ Little did I know that our little mystery was about to become bigger, and that the Subjugat was just the first unravelling of it. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that ends this chapter! Please be kind enough to leave a review of what you thought and I’ll be back with the next instalment soon!
> 
> NOTE: 459 is code for a burglary.


	9. A Lead To Follow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re in the middle of the story now. By the time you read this chapter, I will have finished my first year as a Computer Games Art university student! I hope to pick up the pace before my second year starts at the end of September.
> 
> You may also have noticed that Futures Past has a new cover, drawn by the talented Ziegelzeig! I want to take the time out here to thank him for taking the commission on.
> 
> Special thanks go to the reviewers of the previous chapter:  
> FFN: GhostWolf88, DarkwingWolf8, AStoryTellerBook, Spideyfangirl123, Cimar of Turalis WildeHopps  
> AO3: hk201, x_uve, Gunslinger99  
> DeviantArt: ZroStop, Cimar-WildeHopps, Yoshifan30, konkar68, Fail-Seeker
> 
> And special thanks to the beta readers: J Shute Norway and StuBat.
> 
> The usual business out of the way, let’s get this show on the road!

** A LEAD TO FOLLOW **

_ A burglary at the Gnu York Electronics Store… it clicked that this was another one of the crimes that Chief Buffalo Butt had mentioned the day that our Precinct was bombed. It was a distraction, given everything that was going on then, but we were still police officers. If a crime happened in our jurisdiction, we had to investigate it. _

_ The Gnu York Electronics Store, an independent tech store run by a wildebeest called Connor Chaetes, wasn’t far from The Set. When we got there, we found the front door had been forced open. The store didn’t open early at all – Connor liked to sleep in and his home was a few blocks down from the store. The perks of being your own boss, I guess. _

******

Stepping inside the store, Nick whistled as he surveyed the damage. Entire stands had been knocked over, scattering their contents over the floor.

“Connor’s gonna be a grouchy wildebeest,” Nick remarked.

“You know the owner?” Judy asked. Nick gave her a sly smirk, to which she shrugged and muttered: “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Well, whoever did it left in a hurry,” Nick observed.

“None of the computers have been touched,” Judy noticed, examining a locked cabinet marked ‘PCs and laptops’.

“Odd,” Nick frowned. “Why go to all this trouble and not even take the expensive stuff?”

Judy noticed a camera attached to the wall above the counter, aimed at an angle that would have caught the burglar.

“Is that the only camera?” Judy asked.

“Maybe,” Nick replied. “I didn’t see one on the façade. We might have to look at the jam cam footage later.”

“If they got it back up and running,” Judy pointed out.

“What the Heck?!” came a loud voice from the doorway to the store. Nick and Judy turned to see an irate-looking wildebeest.

“Hey, Connor,” Nick said.

“Don’t you ‘hey’ me, Wilde!” Connor replied. “I was woken up by my burglar alarm app alerting me to an intruder here! I get here and the front door has been jimmied! Tell me what is going on!”

“I think you pretty much answered yourself,” Nick shrugged.

“Looks like a tornado swept right through! What’d they take?” Connor asked. He looked around the store briefly.

“Listen, it’d be a great help if you…” Nick began.

“Whatever. Go watch the CCTV. I’m gonna figure out what was taken,” Connor gruffly remarked, indicating to the back room of the store. Judy and Nick filed into the room, which contained a monitor, a large recording unit and a control unit.

“You’re not gonna try and talk through the mouse, are you?” Judy raised an eyebrow at Nick as he sat at the screen.

“This isn’t Star Trunk 4, Carrots,” Nick grinned as he tapped at the controls. The recording spooled in reverse, lines appearing across the screen as it wound backwards.

“Wait… is that a VCR?” Judy said.

“Gotta love the irony of a tech store owner who uses outdated tech,” Nick responded.

“Well, I guess it helps,” Judy said. “If this is connected to the other burglaries, they can’t take down this system with whatever they were using before.”

“Can’t use a network to take it down if there’s no network to connect to,” Nick chuckled lightly. “I’m almost impressed.”

It took a little while for Nick to rewind the security footage to the point where they needed it.

“Remind me to have a word with Connor about this when we’re done,” Nick shook his head.

“Let’s play it and see what we’ve got,” Judy said. Nick obliged, pressing the play button. The pair stared at the screen, watching the one angle on the camera as the seconds ticked by on the VCR’s timer.

Glass flew into the frame of the picture, and a shadow stepped inside the store.

“Here we go,” Nick remarked.

The figure came into focus quickly, allowing Nick and Judy to identify it as a wolf with grey fur. The wolf looked around, before heading straight for a stand, knocking it over and gathering up stocks into a bag.

“Well, I think that’s this one solved,” Nick said, leaning back in the chair.

“Looks a lot like Officer Wolfard,” Judy pointed out.

“Yeah, it does…” Nick said, placing a thoughtful paw on his chin.

“Do you think it’s one of them?” Judy asked.

“Maybe,” Nick answered. “This isn’t good enough to be able to tell, though. I know there’s a jam cam in this direction so we may be able to get a clearer shot of it.”

“If the jam cams are working again,” Judy pointed out, repeating her earlier sentiment.

The pair continued watching as the wolf turned around and left the store.

“Not even a glance at the expensive stuff,” Nick said as he stopped the recording.

“What was it he stole, I wonder?” Judy asked.

“I’m sure Connor has assessed things enough by now to give us an answer,” Nick got out of the chair and walked back out into the store. Connor was muttering to himself.

“What was taken, chief?” Nick asked as he casually strolled up to the wildebeest.

“A bunch of routers and range extenders,” Connor replied. “Who even steals that stuff and leaves behind the expensive gadgets?”

“I’m sure we’ll find out,” Nick replied.

******

_ Carrots called ahead to report it. Unfortunately, the powers that be had not fixed the jam cams, so getting a clearer picture of that wolf from them was not possible. _

_ So, it was lucky for us that there was a camera attached to the café next to Connor’s store that might have caught something. The owner, who had called the burglary in, was happy to oblige. Thankfully, their system didn’t use a VCR, nor was it connected to a network, so all it took was a few seconds for us to call up the footage of the wolf getting into a van and driving away. _

_ The image, much clearer than the one from Connor’s shop, left me in no doubt. The wolf did indeed look exactly like fellow ZPD officer Ralph Wolfard. There was a visible device attached to the wolf’s skull, behind its ear. _

_ The perpetrator was a Subjugat. _

_ But why steal routers and range extenders? It was bizarre. _

_ After making a copy of the footage and noting the plate number, we decided to return to the Precinct. The plan was to look up the plate number and see what the relation to the other burglaries might have been. _

******

“We won’t have the Precinct One records, but it happened in other Precincts’ jurisdiction too,” Judy remarked as the pair entered their makeshift offices.

“Yeah, we might get lucky,” Nick shrugged as he logged into the computer.

“So, do you want to look up the case reports, or search for the license plate?” Judy asked.

“I’ll take the license plate,” Nick replied as he opened up the application that would let him search for it.

“Going for the easy job, Slick?” Judy raised an eyebrow.

“You know me better than you might think,” Nick shot her a grin. Judy let out a single chuckle before turning back to her station.

“Okay…” Nick said as he typed in the license plate number. It only took a few seconds for a result.

“That was fast,” Judy piped up.

“Yeah, because it’s registered as stolen,” Nick answered.

“Well, I have a couple of case files up here to do with electronic store thefts…” Judy’s eyes darted across the screen. “Routers. Range extenders. Even cabling has been stolen.”

“Well, the reports did mention the cams went down each time,” Nick pointed out. “Perhaps this stuff is being used to help get in to the cam network.”

“If they can get in to the cam network, can they get in anywhere else?” Judy asked.

“Maybe?” Nick shrugged.

“Could they use tech from the future to do it?” Judy pressed.

“Ah, no… I could go into very minute detail about how this stuff works, but let’s just say it would be a bit like trying to run Windeers 10 on a computer designed to run DOS.” Nick explained.

“How do you know about DOS?” Judy raised an enquiring eyebrow.

“When you have to make it look like you were born in the eighties, you kinda have to know this stuff,” Nick pointed out. “How did you guys ever cope with machines that slow, anyway?”

“Don’t ask me, it was before my time,” Judy replied. She suddenly sat up straight in her chair, adding: “Oh! I know who might know what they’re being used for!”

“Carrots, no,” Nick shook his head. “You threw that one out the window when you told it that it could think for itself. It won’t have to tell you anything.”

“Do you have to see the bad in her?” Judy asked in an exasperated tone.

“I came from a future where those things were responsible for killing many innocent mammals. I don’t think there is good in them.” Nick argued.

“Well, I think it’s worth a shot,” Judy replied, hopping out of her chair. “Come on, Slick.”

_ ****** _

_ And so, we diligently dragged our way back across the city to Badge’s place. _

_ If I’m going to be honest, then I expected to find the place levelled. Or Badge to have killed the Subjugat. _

_ So, when we got there, I was surprised. The Set was still intact. And when we got inside, we found the Subjugat seated, almost looking… innocent. Unsure. If I dare say it… kit-like. It wasn’t an expression I could picture on Carrots’ face. Badge was tidying up the mess created by the Subjugat. _

******

“This thing don’t move!” Badge said as Nick and Judy entered the room.

“‘Thing’?” Judy raised an eyebrow.

“You’re acting as if it was your kit or something,” Nick said.

“Well, maybe we need to treat her like one,” Judy said. “This is all new for her.”

“Carrots, this isn’t some damaged mammal you can rehabilitate into society once you free them like the savage mammals,” Nick remarked. “They’re programmed to do a job.”

“Biological,” came the reply.

“Carrots, it doesn’t matter whether it’s biological or not, it’s still basically a machine,” Nick said.

“Uh, Nick? I didn’t say that,” Judy responded. Nick looked at her.

“I did.”

Nick and Judy turned towards the Subjugat, who was staring at them with a blank expression on its face.

“What, apart from developing a sudden questioning streak, you’ve now developed the ability to deny what you are?” Nick asked.

“I… do not know what I am,” the Subjugat said.

“You’re not a slave,” Judy pointed out.

“This…” the Subjugat said, “interferes with our free will, but because we are biological, we do have free will. It’s just suppressed.”

“So, we’re supposed to believe you magically turned it off?” Nick raised an eyebrow.

“I think  _ you _ did,” the Subjugat indicated to Nick.

“I’ve been nowhere near that thing,” Nick replied.

“Your taser might have shorted out more than the communication chip,” Badge suggested.

Nick’s lip twitched. Judy stepped forward.

“Look, this is all good and all, but this doesn’t help us right now,” Judy remarked. “We need to get back on case. Uh…” she frowned, “what exactly do I call you?”

“JH-304,” the Subjugat replied.

“Right… I’m not using that,” Judy replied.

“Gotta call it something,” Nick said. “Might as well be its number.”

“She’s more than a number, Nick,” Judy said. “Now… Jay Haych… Jay Haych… What should we call you? Jodie? No, I already have a sister by that name… July? Nice name, but no… Jessica… urgh, don’t remind me of  _ that  _ one… Jay Haych… Juliah?” Judy looked at her double. “Does that work?”

“Juliah is fine,” the Subjugat replied.

“Juliah it is, then!” Judy clapped with a small smile on her face.

“Great, now it has a name, can we go back to why we’re here?” Nick remarked. Judy shot him a short glare before turning back to the newly-named Juliah.

“Juliah, can you tell us something about the others?” Judy asked. “Why would they be stealing routers and range extenders?”

“They needed them so we could use them to allow our machines to break into the city’s camera systems,” Juliah replied.

“Pointless doing that if you took out the main server,” Nick shook his head.

“In the case of that happening, a back-up goes live,” Judy pointed out.

“Perfect time to get ahead and hijack the signal, if you ask me,” Badge chimed in.

“Is that what they’re doing?” Nick wondered. “Try to get in as the backup goes up?”

“I think so,” Juliah replied.

“And, let me guess… you were meant to bomb Precinct One to take the camera out? That’s like dropping a nuke on a cockroach!” Nick raised his voice.

“I was meant to supervise. TF-101 was the one who detonated the device,” Juliah explained.

“A friend of yours?” Badge asked.

“They found a feline body at the centre of the explosion,” Judy replied.

“That… was TF-101,” Juliah confirmed, her eyes falling a little for a brief moment before returning Judy’s gaze. “She knew what she was getting in to, even if she couldn’t disobey. These things…” Juliah tapped her implant again, “may interfere with our free will, they may also trigger an emotional suppression, but we do feel. I… am struggling with the realisation that I can feel. I feel something that I don’t know… but it doesn’t feel pleasant,” She tentatively placed a paw over her chest. Judy stepped forward and placed her own paw over Juliah’s.

“It’ll be okay,” Judy said.

******

_ Well, we had learned a little, I guess. But it didn’t really help us with the problem at hand: finding the puppet master. _

_ The odd thing was witnessing this Subjugat exhibit even a small amount of emotion. I knew Carrots had a big heart, and she was optimistic to the point of seeing the good in mammals where they didn’t even see the good in themselves. I knew that well enough for myself. Still there was a thought in my mind: what if all this was a trick? I didn’t have the ability to trust this Subjugat, at least not at that time. _

_ For whatever reason, Carrots chose to trust it, and I didn’t want to question my trust in her. _

******

“We really need to know anything you know. It could really help us out,” Judy said to Juliah.

Nick bit his tongue briefly.

“If you really can feel, then do what feels right,” Nick suggested. Juliah stared at him before returning her gaze to Judy.

“For a short time after we arrived in this time, we were in contact with somebody, a small sheep,” Juliah stated. Nick and Judy glanced at each other as Juliah continued: “She already knew about the savage mammals, and it was clear that she was the one responsible for them.”

“Bellwether,” Nick and Judy said together.

“That was her name, yes,” Juliah confirmed.

“Well, it’s as good a place to start as any,” Judy said. “And if Bellwether was involved, she must have known about this whole thing.”

******

_ I was wrong. _

_ I was going to prison. Just not for the reason I thought it would be. _


End file.
